1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Budget Workshop 10 Wednesday, July 16, 2008 11 9:00 a.m. 12 Commissioners' Courtroom 13 Kerr County Courthouse 14 Kerrville, Texas 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X July 16, 2008 2 PAGE 3 Participate in Budget Workshops for the following departments: 4 Employee Health Benefits 3 5 Human Resources/Personnel Policies/Reorganization 6 issues 21 7 City/County Joint Operations 101 8 Adjourned 110 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 On Wednesday, July 16, 2008, at 9:00 a.m., a budget 2 workshop of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in 3 the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, 4 Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in 5 open court: 6 P R O C E E D I N G S 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's come to order, if we 8 might, for our Commissioners Court workshop scheduled for 9 this date and time, Wednesday, July 16th, 2008, at 9 a.m. It 10 is a bit past that time now. The workshop agenda this 11 morning calls for participation in budget workshops for 12 departments as follows: City/County joint operations, 13 employee health benefits, reorganization issues, human 14 resources, and personnel policies. I'd like to start off 15 with the employee health benefits. I see Mr. Looney is here, 16 and let him go ahead and tell us what's on his mind. Do we 17 need the podium set up over here? Probably would be a good 18 idea. I'm not sure we're going to need the mic set up. 19 (Discussion off the record.) 20 MR. LOONEY: Morning, Judge, Commissioners. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning. 22 MR. LOONEY: I'll try to make the comments 23 relatively short this morning, because, you know, as we know, 24 we changed administrators last year. We've got -- moving 25 forward right now, we've got about five solid months of -- of 7-16-08 bwk 4 1 claim information on the new administrator, so we're trying 2 to work on getting an additional month of July, and we'd like 3 to have another full month of August before we come back 4 with -- with more solid projection numbers for you. But 5 right now, we're looking at about an 8 percent increase in 6 our cost for next year. And that's just trying to take all 7 that information we've had for the last two and a half years, 8 and we're blending in information that we've gotten that 9 we've received from -- from our new administrator at this 10 point. 11 A lot of that, unfortunately, is not directly 12 attributable to your experience as a -- as a county, but some 13 of it's attributable to what we're projecting as far as trend 14 as a result of -- history shows that during an election year, 15 trends are down; that a lot of medical trend factors do not 16 increase during an election year, and then arbitrarily change 17 after an election year. It's just historical. There's -- or 18 hysterical, whichever. So, some of this trend factor that 19 we're building in in this 8 percent has to do with just 20 historical trend that occurs from one election period -- from 21 one change in a presidential period to another. And so 22 that's what we're -- you know, it's not just Kerr County; 23 this is nationwide that we see. And it's less, actually, in 24 this county than we're seeing in other cities and counties 25 around the state of Texas. So, we've got that we have to 7-16-08 bwk 5 1 deal with. 2 I don't know if you've been watching the Medicare 3 bills that are in Congress right now. They've -- they've had 4 two bills pass, one in the House of Representatives and the 5 Senate, having to change and re -- and the initial bills were 6 reducing payments to physicians by up to 13 percent. That 7 bill did not pass. So, they have extended the payments to 8 Medicare physicians so that they are not taking that -- that 9 reduction. Subsequently, we have other cost factors that 10 then apply back into that area. One of the things we need to 11 look at from the county standpoint that's more specific to 12 you is what we do moving forward with the retirees from the 13 county. Right now, y'all, as a county, have a substantial 14 benefit that you build in for your retiree population, 15 whether they're under age 65 or over age 65, so we're looking 16 very closely at that. Cost and exposure for your employees 17 that are in that retiree group that then become eligible for 18 Medicare. Right now, we're not taking advantage of the 19 Medicare options that are available for Medicare being 20 primary, and so we want to look very hard at your retiree 21 population that moves into the age of 65 Medicare 22 eligibility, of making Medicare as their primary carrier 23 versus the County as being the primary carrier. 24 In addition to that, we have to look very closely 25 at the reasons for employees wanting to be under the Medicare 7-16-08 bwk 6 1 program or not. Primarily, it's the fact of a prescription 2 medication program. Medicare Part D is not necessarily the 3 -- the best prescription reimbursement plan that's out there. 4 So, we will be coming back to you with a recommendation as to 5 how to move and change that while trying to protect the 6 interest on the prescription drug side of it, by getting as 7 much of the coordination of the benefits from Medicare to 8 benefit us as a county. The people that -- Medicare is not a 9 bad -- Medicare medical plan is not a bad plan, but we want 10 to make sure that, moving forward, that we get as much of 11 that expense to offset our cost as we can. The other thing 12 we want to look at is, you know, our charges that we make for 13 our retirees. We really haven't impacted that cost for 14 employees in the retiree base much in the past, and we're 15 really kind of backwards, you know, what our charges are for 16 those individuals. We'll take a better look at what those 17 costs are. We probably are going to recommend an increase of 18 premium for those retiree -- for that retiree group. 19 The other item that we are going to give you some 20 pricing on and give you some evaluation of is the leave of 21 absence policy, based on short-term leave of absences, 22 personal time off in relationship to the insurance industry's 23 response to that, which is a short-term disability product. 24 We want to look at the pricing, your cost for that time off 25 versus what the pricing would be to insure that product, so 7-16-08 bwk 7 1 we'll be able to give you an indication of whether it's 2 better to be insured in that area or to not be. So, we'll be 3 giving you some information on that pretty -- pretty quickly, 4 too. That's pretty much what I've got right now. We're 5 still trying to gather a lot of information. We've got a 6 projection for a health fair coming up. We're not sure what 7 the date is going to be, but we're going to work with the 8 providers, the current vendors, of having health care 9 presented for all the county employees. That's my story. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Looney, are we looking at any 11 adjustments to the prescription benefits portion of the plan 12 to try and achieve some sort of cost containment? 13 MR. LOONEY: We've got -- we've got a -- we're 14 trying to get information from the Mutual of Omaha group, the 15 ex group, which is -- has to do with specific formulary that 16 was in use, which formulary is the listing of medications 17 that has the co-payments and the other negotiated pricing 18 associated with it. We're pulling that in from Express 19 Scripts, making some comparisons, because we went from -- 20 from one area of formulary to another area of formulary, and 21 we've got some disparities in there that we want to try to 22 clean up. The formulary for Express Scripts, for instance, 23 we've got some requirements for specialty medications in 24 there that we need to make sure that all employees are very 25 well aware of as far as being able to negotiate for those 7-16-08 bwk 8 1 specialty medications. We want to make sure they're going 2 through the Express Scripts program. It can mean as much as 3 50, 60, 70 percent savings in those medications alone, which 4 are the high-priced medications. 5 Looking at changing the formulary to some degree to 6 look at the therapeutic process, and generic medications 7 being able to be used to replace those medications that can 8 be replaced based on the therapeutic base, as opposed to just 9 the generic versus branded medications. So, yes, sir, we're 10 looking at making some changes in that area. But, again, 11 you'll -- you will have a full presentation on those changes. 12 The most highly -- there's two very highly utilized 13 medications. One is Nexium; the other one is Lipitor, and 14 we're taking a good, hard look at what the volume of those 15 medications are. You don't have as many of the utilization 16 -- have as much utilization in the hypertension area as I 17 thought you would have. Not concerned about that as much, 18 but -- but what they call GERD, which is the esophageal 19 reflux medications, which my dad used to handle with Alka 20 Seltzer, is now handled by a fairly high-cost medication. 21 So, we're going to take a look at how that works, and just -- 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Does our population in the 23 county have a lot more of that type of use than general? 24 MR. LOONEY: You're above average. As far -- and 25 you're above average in utilization of medications in 7-16-08 bwk 9 1 general, as far as percentage of the total cost of the plan. 2 The last time I -- last number that I felt comfortable with 3 was, you were about 20 percent -- 19 to 20 percent of the 4 total cost of the medication in the plan, which is a little 5 high. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that comparing -- does that 7 take into account the age of our population? 8 MR. LOONEY: It's strictly utilization. We haven't 9 really applied against any -- any age circumstances yet. But 10 average medications, you typically have about one 11 prescription drug per month, per employee. You all are 12 running about two and a quarter per month, per employee. 13 That doesn't mean that every employee is taking medications. 14 It just means that some of you -- some of the population are 15 taking as many as four or five and six medications a month. 16 And that's it. The other thing that we're really watching 17 carefully is the contraindications of taking multiple 18 medications from multiple physicians, and acquiring those 19 medications from multiple pharmacists. So, we're -- we're 20 tracking to be sure that we don't have contraindicated drugs 21 being utilized by employees. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Gary, a 7 percent increase 23 coming up; just off the top of your head, could you tell 24 me -- 25 MR. LOONEY: You just took one point off my 7-16-08 bwk 10 1 increase. 8 percent. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 8 percent? It's getting 3 worse. I knew that. I was just checking to see if you knew. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Good try, Buster. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. The -- can you just, 6 off the top of your head, tell me what it was the last two or 7 three years? Has it been about that same number? 8 MR. LOONEY: No. Actually, we've been in the 2, 9 3 percent range for -- for the last four years. I think the 10 highest increase we had was about 3 and a half percent. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Which we screamed 12 about at that time. 13 MR. LOONEY: Right. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And now we're talking 8. 15 MR. LOONEY: Projected at this point in time, based 16 on limited information. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: What's the national average figures 18 on annual percentage in health plan costs? 19 MR. LOONEY: They're -- they're back into the 20 double-digit numbers. They're back in the 11, 12 percent 21 range. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: As they have been for a number of 23 years? 24 MR. LOONEY: Right. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: So, what we've done has been 7-16-08 bwk 11 1 significantly below the national average for a number of 2 years. 3 MR. LOONEY: Being able to average less than a 4 4 percent increase over the last 4 years is significantly 5 better than what you see in the economy. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for Mr. Looney? 7 Ms. Hyde, what do you have to feed into the health benefits? 8 MR. LOONEY: Thank you. 9 MS. HYDE: Mr. Looney and I talked, so what he was 10 saying is exactly what I'm saying. I mean, we do have folks 11 that we need to look at. We need to look at our retiree plan 12 going forward. We're not talking about cutting it out or -- 13 you know, everyone will have it. We're just saying that 14 there's some things that we can do to shore it up a little 15 bit to help decrease some costs of it to us, which is when 16 you hit 65 and you go to Medicare, Medicare becomes primary 17 and we become secondary. And it doesn't sound like much, but 18 that can save us quite a bit of funds. Most retirees are 19 using it for our prescriptions, which is great. That's fine, 20 but we've talked about it. You know, we don't know what 21 Medicare is going to do. We don't know what these Part D's 22 are going to do. There's multiples that you can buy; 23 U.S.A.A., A.A.R.P., the whole gamut. It's become a new 24 business on prescription drugs for the elderly. So, until 25 the government -- until we have our election, we're really 7-16-08 bwk 12 1 not going to know, I don't believe. I don't think -- I 2 think, Gary, you said the same thing. So, you know that 3 there will be a small increase for the retirees for their 4 premium. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are we getting better -- I 6 should probably ask Gary -- better usage from our health 7 savings accounts, or the health deal? For a while, we 8 weren't getting -- a lot of employees weren't using them 9 properly, or using -- 10 MS. HYDE: Oh, they're using them, absolutely. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're being used? 12 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. 13 MR. LOONEY: Very much so. 14 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. We have a lot of folks that 15 have already banged out -- excuse me, bottomed out. 16 MR. LOONEY: Very well appreciated by the 17 employees. 18 MS. HYDE: Mm-hmm. And they understand it better. 19 They understand that, you know, they're taking a risk if they 20 use it for co-pays versus a deductible. They actually 21 understand those two words now. And I think that, you know, 22 just keeping working with them, the next stage is making sure 23 that they understand that you only have 90 days into the new 24 year, so if you're going to try to use it for something the 25 prior year, you only have till March 15th, 'cause we have to 7-16-08 bwk 13 1 have it in by the 31st and it's done. Which has hurt some 2 folks, but it's education. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: But you can accumulate up to three 4 years of your HRA benefit and carry it forward. 5 MS. HYDE: You must have been reading my mind, 6 'cause that's my next bullet point. Somehow, our HRA account 7 has changed. I did a lot of background work on what y'all 8 had approved originally, and originally the HRA was approved 9 so that employee -- just on a single employee, we would get 10 $600 towards their HRA. If it was an employee and a spouse, 11 again, it's $600 plus $600 is $1,200. And if it was an 12 employee, spouse, one child, multiple children, that's 13 another $600, which is $1,800 per person. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That was originally? 15 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. I cannot find anywhere where 16 it was approved to modify that to employee gets $600; if 17 you're married, you get $1,800. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 19 MS. HYDE: So, I am requesting that y'all ponder 20 that one, and that we go back to the original $600, $600, 21 $600. Because right now, it seems like, you know, you're 22 being penalized if you're single. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're single. 24 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. So if you know anybody 25 that's -- no. 7-16-08 bwk 14 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Golly. 2 MR. LOONEY: That's worth $600. 3 MS. HYDE: $600. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. What else do you have for us? 5 MR. RUARK: You're blushing, Eva. 6 MS. HYDE: That one came out real bad. But I've -- 7 as far as insurance goes, the other thing that Gary and I 8 have talked a lot about during the last year, the folks in 9 this building have been great about working on the policy 10 book. Y'all know that's been a work in progress, and we've 11 had some glitches and some things that have kind of ganked 12 it, but everyone has been working hard on it. One of the 13 discussions that I'd like for y'all to ponder is, we 14 currently have sick pay, and that sick pay is given to 15 employees at 8 hours per month, which means they get 12 days 16 off per year for sick time, and that sick time can 17 accumulate. There is -- there is no maximum. They can earn 18 as much -- we just don't pay them for sick time when they 19 leave Kerr County, when they leave employment. One thing -- 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, they -- they don't -- 21 there's not a payout if they leave, but they can accumulate 22 it as long as they're employed? 23 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. And they can also -- before 24 they leave, they can also use a lot of it, because they have 25 it and they can use it. 7-16-08 bwk 15 1 JUDGE TINLEY: And sometimes do. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They can use it and then 3 resign. 4 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I'd like 5 for y'all to ponder another ponder point, that we absorb 6 short-term disability for the employees and reduce sick time 7 to zero and change it to be called personal time. And they 8 can earn five days a year. That's their personal time; they 9 can do whatever they want to. They don't have to be sick. 10 It can be for their birthday, their anniversary, whatever, 11 but we absorb the short-term disability for them so that that 12 would pay them when they're sick, short term. It decreases 13 our liability; it decreases our costs. We'll give you more 14 information as we go on it. When we got the last quotes, it 15 was around $10,000, $11,000 a year for the County to take 16 over short-term disability. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Explain short-term, how -- I 18 mean, short-term disability. 19 MS. HYDE: Short-term disability typically is if an 20 employee is out one day, no, they're not going to get paid. 21 If they're out more than one day, they do get paid. You can 22 do it just like other things; you can say if they go out one 23 day, as long as they have a doctor's excuse or they have 24 something, short-term disability will pay. You can do it on 25 a two-day; you can do on it a three-day. You can do it up to 7-16-08 bwk 16 1 a week. 2 MR. LOONEY: Seven days. 3 MS. HYDE: Now, we figured it on zero days, so 4 if -- the first day they're out, just like now, if they have 5 sick time, first day they're out, they're paid. We figured 6 short-term on the same thing. First day out, they would get 7 paid. If they go out more than three days -- if they're out 8 more than three days, they have to have a doctor's excuse, 9 which is no different than what they're supposed to be doing 10 right now. I think the fear on a lot of folks' part is that 11 if I've got thousands of hours, 'cause we do have some folks 12 that have thousands of hours of sick time, okay, what happens 13 if I get real sick? If we purchase the short-term disability 14 for employees, then it becomes their responsibility to look 15 at long-term, if there's a catastrophic illness or if there's 16 a long-term disability. That long-term disability is not 17 that expensive. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Now, how long is -- I mean, is 19 short-term? 20 MS. HYDE: Up to six months. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Up to six months? 22 MS. HYDE: Mm-hmm. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Have you determined 24 system-wide abuses in the use of sick pay? We don't have all 25 morning for you to tell us, but yes or no. 7-16-08 bwk 17 1 MS. HYDE: Um -- 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I guess that's a yes. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I read it as a no. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: I read it as a, there appears to be 5 some indication there might be some. 6 MS. HYDE: There is some abuses. There are some 7 abuses, but there's some abuses in the vacation and comp 8 time. And a lot of it, I think, has to do with people not 9 understanding it. How'd I do? 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Surely no one would 11 purposely abuse -- 12 MS. HYDE: Absolutely not. I don't believe any of 13 our employees are -- or anyone would purposely abuse it. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Without prior approval. 15 (Laughter.) 16 MS. HYDE: So -- 17 MR. LOONEY: Check the number of sick days prior to 18 long vacations like the 4th of July. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Go on, Eva. 20 MS. HYDE: As far as insurance, that's really all. 21 Gary and I have been working on it. I would like to get an 22 opportunity, 'cause there's so many folks in here -- I know 23 that folks have had problems this year, and FARA has gotten a 24 black eye. A lot of people have blamed FARA for our 25 problems. FARA's not our problem. Our transition time last 7-16-08 bwk 18 1 year where our prior provider left the state of Texas has 2 been the issue. We started out in December with the claims. 3 People started getting EOB's in January and February saying, 4 "You're no longer an employee; you're not covered." You 5 know, everybody gets upset. Well, you're talking 60 days 6 into the new year before we even start getting the EOB's. 7 FARA then is trying to take over. They didn't get good 8 information. They didn't get claims paid information until 9 about three weeks ago from the prior provider. And what that 10 does is, it's like a little library book that tells you we 11 have -- we paid "X" amount of dollars for Eva Hyde's 12 medication last year. We paid "X" amount to Sid Pete or Hill 13 Country Hospital or whoever for this procedure. So, when -- 14 when people bring in bills from the hospitals or from 15 doctors, we have to look at the EOB, and if it already shows 16 that the prior provider paid, of course, FARA's not going to 17 repay it. The problem was, there was nothing telling us what 18 they had paid or not paid, so FARA was sitting there not 19 knowing. So, if we had approved it, sure, they could have 20 paid all those bills, but what about the ones that had 21 already been paid? Now we're duplicating payments. So that, 22 in a nutshell, is what has been going on the last six months. 23 Our last pile was 65 pages of EOB's that were in the first 24 and second quarter of 2007. That's January through June. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: I appreciate that explanation, 7-16-08 bwk 19 1 because that boils it down in a nutshell as to where we are. 2 And that first 50,000 is our money. 3 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: So that puts it pretty well in 5 perspective. I appreciate that. 6 MS. HYDE: The last thing that Gary and I talked 7 about is that I'd like to go ahead and send out all-county 8 e-mails to make sure everybody understands that we need to 9 stop any claims -- any more claims from 2007. We've got to 10 -- we've got to kind of draw a line in the sand, 'cause we're 11 ready to go into '08-'09, so we'd like to be able to say to 12 everyone you have until July 31st -- 31 days this month? -- 13 July 31st for all 2007 claims that are sitting out there. 14 You've got to at least bring them to us so we know they're 15 there. 'Cause it's -- we don't know how many more are out 16 there. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Would these be claims that 18 an individual has paid and seeks reimbursement for 19 personally? 20 MS. HYDE: Either that, or that doctor bills 21 weren't paid; they're starting to get collection notices. 22 Hospital bills weren't paid; they're getting collection 23 notices. That seems to be the big ones that we're getting. 24 You know, people were disregarding the paperwork, and now 25 they're getting into collections, and the collectors are 7-16-08 bwk 20 1 pretty serious, and they're bringing them to us. So, we'd 2 like to be able to say, "Okay, 2007, that claim year is 3 getting ready to close." 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Why don't we set a 5 reasonable cutoff date each new year? 6 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Maybe 90 days after the 8 year starts. 9 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. 10 MR. LOONEY: Actually, that's part of the contract 11 that says you're supposed to report a claim from the previous 12 year within the first 90 days of the following year for it to 13 be eligible for reimbursement. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Then we need to enforce it. 15 MR. LOONEY: Yeah. If it hasn't been -- if it 16 hasn't been reported -- if it's been reported, that means 17 it's still eligible to be paid; they just need additional 18 information. But not having received it at all, not having 19 it reported typically will exempt that from being an eligible 20 claim. 21 MS. HYDE: That's it on insurance. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let's go back and talk about 23 the retire -- retirees. 24 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The elderly folks. I used 7-16-08 bwk 21 1 to not see that as quite as important an issue, but I've had 2 a paradigm shift and a revelation -- 3 MR. LOONEY: And a birthday. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- of how important that the 5 program is for retirees. 6 MS. HYDE: Right. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Old folks. And -- 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're speaking for both of 9 us, aren't you? 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm trying to help Bill out 11 here. And I just hope that you guys stay in there and, you 12 know, let's keep plugging at that thing till we get it right. 13 Thank you for that. 14 MS. HYDE: We all need it. We're all getting 15 older. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for Ms. Hyde? 17 Comments? 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Thank you, ma'am. How about 20 we go to human resources generally, personnel. Ms. Hyde? 21 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: We're not going to let you rest. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You're back up. H.R. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: H.R. generally, personnel. 25 MS. HYDE: Personnel. 2007-2008 has been an 7-16-08 bwk 22 1 interesting year. Are we going to do all of it, or do I need 2 to break it down? 3 JUDGE TINLEY: I don't know what you got. 4 MS. HYDE: I guess you can stop me, right? Okay. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Been known to happen. 6 MS. HYDE: We got a couple of things that we'd like 7 for y'all to look at. And I say "we" because I think that 8 this year we've done a better job at getting more folks 9 involved with what's going on, not only in our county, but in 10 our cities nearby, counties outside of the Kerr County realm, 11 but also looking at right here in Kerrville and Ingram and 12 Comfort and Hunt. I gave you something similar to this last 13 year. Yes, it's still small. Jeannie tried to help me blow 14 it up, but it is still small. That's for y'all's review. 15 These are the counties. You will notice, if you look at last 16 year or this year, we lost six counties that I tried to 17 compare us with. They've moved up, and we've had one that 18 went down quite a bit. The counties that went up went over 19 the 50,000, and went up 25,000 to 30,000. Some of them had 20 huge shifts in their population and their revenues. 21 For the 2007-2008 budgets, these are comparisons 22 for what elected officials received. There is one elected 23 official that's not on here, and that's the County Court at 24 Law Judge. The information for County Court at Law Judge was 25 all across the board, because in the TAC book, they ask for 7-16-08 bwk 23 1 your supplements -- your base salary supplements, and it 2 appears that some folks did all their supplements and just 3 gave one salary and then didn't really break it down, so it's 4 all across the board. So, rather than show confusion, it's 5 not on there. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: I think, by state law, that 7 fluctuates depending upon what the District Judges' salaries 8 are as set by statute. Is that not correct, Judge Brown? 9 JUDGE BROWN: Yeah, right, $1,000 less than the 10 District Judge. It's set by statute. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: So that's probably not relevant to 12 what we're talking about. 13 JUDGE BROWN: No, my salary can't go up or down; it 14 just remains at that level. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Set by state statute, and -- 16 JUDGE BROWN: Yeah. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: And it's just -- 18 MS. HYDE: They show some County Court at Law 19 making $35,000, and then they have some making $124,000, so 20 it went -- 21 JUDGE BROWN: They came in and changed that last 22 year. I think it's across the board. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wouldn't you say the same 24 thing about the County Judge, though? He has all of the 25 little -- tons of little things that nobody knows about. 7-16-08 bwk 24 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tons. (Laughter.) 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Truckloads. 3 MS. HYDE: Well, I think that the County Judge 4 numbers from the TAC book are pretty consistent, and they 5 show different supplements. Doesn't show what the 6 supplements are, not by name, but it does show what the base 7 is, and then there's so much in supplementals. But not 8 all -- 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: They're finally revealing 10 all that stuff to the taxpaying public, I see. Okay, thank 11 you. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ms. Hyde, do you have a list of 13 the neighboring counties in addition to this, such as 14 Kendall, Gillespie? 15 MS. HYDE: We have some of that information. I 16 didn't put it on here 'cause last year you said you didn't 17 want to see -- it's not real pertinent. I left those off. I 18 can put them back on and give them to you. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Kendall's becoming a -- 20 MS. HYDE: Very big one. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- a good one to look at. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, it is. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I think Bandera is too. 24 Bandera's population is really growing. They have a lot of 25 issues going on. 7-16-08 bwk 25 1 MS. HYDE: Do you want me to add Bandera and 2 Kendall and put it back on? 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And Gillespie. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think Gillespie, because I 5 think they're -- I mean, different, but they're growing as 6 well. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We ought to compare Kimble 8 with Edwards. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're a little bit different. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You can compare Kimble to 11 Edwards, yes. 12 MS. HYDE: One thing that is different from last 13 year to this year, there appear -- there appears to be a 14 little bit more vehicle or travel -- not travel allowance, 15 but mileage reimbursement. The Commissioners, the County 16 Judge, and the J.P.'s. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where do I see that? 18 MS. HYDE: It's the little tiny, tiny column. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Little tiny, tiny -- 20 MS. HYDE: Next to the bigger column. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: There. It has a number in there, 22 vehicles. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh, I see it. I see it, 24 yeah. I got you. 25 MS. HYDE: And as we continue talking, everyone 7-16-08 bwk 26 1 knows fuel is quite an issue this year. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Speaking of this travel 3 thing and vehicle issue and all that, I see it's blank in 4 Kerr County. 5 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. We don't -- we don't give 6 anyone vehicles. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's the point here today. 8 MS. HYDE: And we don't give mileage reimbursement. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Right. 10 MS. HYDE: And that's all that is. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: For in-county service. We 12 don't give mileage reimbursement for miles driven within the 13 county. 14 MS. HYDE: No, sir. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We do for miles -- 16 MS. HYDE: We don't give mileage allowances, but -- 17 we don't give mileage allowances; these are part of people's 18 salaries. I want to make sure we all understand. If it 19 shows "VEH" for vehicle, they actually get a real vehicle. 20 Or if there's a dollar amount -- I went ahead and put zeros 21 in there so that we'd all stay clear. If it's zeros, they 22 don't get anything, but if there's a dollar amount in there, 23 that is part of their salary, and they get that based on a 24 monthly basis, so that the number you're seeing is the annual 25 amount. Where it says $1,200, they're getting 100 bucks a 7-16-08 bwk 27 1 month in their pay towards mileage. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In today's economy, that's 3 two tanks of gas for a whole month. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: For a little car. 5 MS. HYDE: If you don't drive all around Kerr 6 County. 1,100 miles will use a tank of gas. Any other 7 questions on this one? 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What's the point here? 9 MS. HYDE: Education and discussion. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, okay. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Installment number two, right? 12 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Uh-huh. 14 MS. HYDE: Most of you that have been in purchasing 15 know who Sperlings is. Sperlings is someone that D.O.L., the 16 government uses a lot. Then you have some that their 17 secondary that most of us use if we hit the internet is 18 called City.com. If you're looking to move somewhere or 19 looking for prices, it tells you. If you look at the first 20 one, Sperlings tells us that from 2000 to 2007, Kerrville, 21 Texas -- they don't do it at all on counties; they do it on 22 cities, and Kerrville is the largest city in Kerr County. It 23 shows where our population is. It tells us the median home 24 in Kerrville is now $239,000. Now, keep in mind, I'm not an 25 idiot. I do understand we got lots of big houses and we got 7-16-08 bwk 28 1 lots of small houses in this area. We tend to be missing a 2 lot of medium-sized houses, but it's still $239,000. 3 Our unemployment rate is -- is fairly good against 4 the national average. The national average is 4.6; we're at 5 3.2. Our job growth in the last few years has been very 6 stagnant compared to anybody else; we're less than 1 percent, 7 but the future predictions goes up to 19, 20 percent. I 8 don't know where that's coming from. I don't understand. 9 Maybe that has to do with the economic group. Maybe they're 10 going -- there's something that other people know about. 11 Maybe we're going to bring in some other large businesses. 12 We're on an interstate. That number seems a little bit out 13 of whack to me, but if you look at salaries, incomes per 14 capita is 22,9, and the median household income for this area 15 is $35,847. If you go to the next page, it gives you some 16 more breakouts. Then you go to City.com. Please notice that 17 the City.com data is only 2000 versus 2005. In 2005, 18 Kerrville, the median household value was $109,400. In two 19 years, the median cost of a house has doubled. Now, as a 20 homeowner, I can tell you that my appraised value in the last 21 three years has doubled, my home cost. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But the median -- what that 23 also could be reflective of is that the upper end is growing 24 fast and the lower end isn't. So -- 25 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 7-16-08 bwk 29 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- the median's going up with 2 no change. 3 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's what happened here. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's Comanche Trace and part 6 of that. 7 MS. HYDE: That's right, absolutely. You got it. 8 Part three of four. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: One potshot at a time. 11 MS. HYDE: This next is the first two out of three 12 pages from the Department of Labor facts, and what this tells 13 us is that already we've gone up 4.2 percent for all items 14 from year over year, last year to this year, 4.2 percent. 15 Simple math, that means if I got a dollar, and in 2007 I had 16 a dollar in my hand, this year that same dollar is worth 96 17 cents. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: I did see within the last week -- 19 and I think it was referring to the Producer's Price Index. 20 In June alone, it was up 1.6 or 1.8, one or the other. 21 MS. HYDE: 1.8. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: The producers for June alone. 23 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wholesale index. 25 MS. HYDE: They were supposed to come out yesterday 7-16-08 bwk 30 1 with the new inflation rates. They postponed it. Typically, 2 when they postpone it -- and I'll let the Auditor -- y'all 3 can look at her as well. Typically, when they postpone 4 giving out rates, it's because they're trying to figure out 5 what happened, 'cause something has happened. And they don't 6 want to bring out the wrong rates, so they'll typically put 7 it off 24 to 48, maybe sometimes a week to make sure that 8 their data is accurate and correct. But all the -- all of 9 the indicators that are out there are saying that our 10 inflation rate has probably done the same thing again, 11 anywhere from 4 to 6 percent. So, that would take us, you 12 know, 8 to 10 percent as an inflation rate year over year, 13 which is pretty huge. Again, this is just -- 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Does the C.P.I. include energy? 15 Does the C.P.I. include -- is energy included? 16 MS. HYDE: Well, what they do is, all the items at 17 the top, sir, that's everything where they've adjusted it on 18 the far right, where it says 4.2. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mm-hmm. 20 MS. HYDE: On the first page. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 22 MS. HYDE: And then down at the bottom, what they 23 do is they show all items, less food and energy, and fuel is 24 included into the energy. But if you go down there on the 25 right side, energy has gone up 17.4 percent, and food has 7-16-08 bwk 31 1 gone up a total 5.1 percent, which is pretty -- which is 2 pretty high. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Now, this is national that we're 4 looking at, as opposed to -- 5 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: -- southwest or -- 7 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. You've got two. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: -- south/southwest? 9 MS. HYDE: I've got you all urban on the first 10 page, and then I have us, the west, on the second page. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. And that shows 4.5? 12 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What makes up 14 transportation? 15 MS. HYDE: Transportation is -- is the cost to move 16 the products. It is, for example, at UPS, our trucks. HEB's 17 trucks, anything to move people, goods, and services. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Commercial movement of 19 products. 20 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else you want to call 23 attention to in Installment 3? 24 MS. HYDE: Sure thing, sir. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just full of information 7-16-08 bwk 32 1 this morning, aren't you? 2 MS. HYDE: Well, I'm trying to remember all the 3 questions y'all asked last year, and trying to answer them 4 before you ask them. This next one is just another simple -- 5 you can look at it. A dollar in 2007 is worth 96 cents in 6 2008. The next part is -- is me on a soapbox, I guess is the 7 best way to put it. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where do you start? I'm 9 sorry, go ahead. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: The 96 cents, according to the top, 11 is through March of '08. 12 MS. HYDE: They haven't updated the B.L. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: I'm sorry, Buster. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where does your soapbox 15 start? 16 MS. HYDE: Second paragraph. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: On Page 1? 18 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 20 MS. HYDE: There's a lot of stats that we use in 21 H.R. Most of them are useful, and they provide benchmarks 22 for all of us to do our job. But there's one that gives me 23 fits, and that's the cost of turnover. I should say stats 24 all the way, because the numbers are all over the place. How 25 do you determine how much it costs to replace an employee? 7-16-08 bwk 33 1 The truth is, the number depends on the number and the -- the 2 actual employee themselves. What are you trying to replace? 3 If you're trying to replace a relatively new employee, 4 unskilled, then the cost, of course, is going to be just your 5 cost for advertising and bringing them in. But if you've got 6 two, three years experience in this employee, it can be as 7 much as a year salary, because you're going to spend six to 8 twelve months training this person how to take money, how to 9 use the computer system, get bonded, understanding, make sure 10 there's more than one job task that they're doing. So, 11 that -- that is -- that's unquantifiable. I know that 12 there's a lot of stress involved. I know that morale gets 13 tough. If you're short-staffed in an office of one, and 14 you've got that one person that has just left you, it hurts 15 you pretty bad. The bigger the office, the more that you can 16 absorb. We all know that, but it still hurts when you're 17 losing as many people as we're starting to lose in this 18 county. 19 In the last year, we've taken over 100 applications 20 in the H.R. office. A hundred. And out of that 100, we've 21 had 15 that are viable, that meet just the minimum standards 22 on the application process. We're not even talking if they 23 have the stuff to do the job. I'm talking about that they 24 can answer, "No, no, no, no, no, no" to those questions that 25 we can legally ask. When we start getting into whether they 7-16-08 bwk 34 1 have the skills to do the job, then -- then we lose even 2 more. So, 15 out of every 100 people that we're getting 3 start out as viable, and then we end up cutting those to less 4 than 25 percent, or two to three people. We've been without 5 a maintenance person since January. We've run ads. We've 6 tried to bring people in. It is tough. It's getting tougher 7 finding people, and qualified people. 8 If you go to the last page, I'll skip the rest of 9 the soapbox. Consumer prices rose 4.2 percent from April to 10 April, 2007 to 2008. Energy costs are up 15.9 percent. Food 11 costs are on the rise. Bread prices is 14 percent higher 12 now. I don't have any kids, but my niece is here this 13 summer, so -- milk in my house normally goes bad before I 14 drink it. When you have a kid, they drink it. I did not 15 realize that milk costs so much. It's more than gas. I told 16 her we'll just go to the damn gas pump and we'll fill her up, 17 because she drinks a lot of milk. I mean, our food and our 18 fuel is -- is killing a lot of folks out here right now. And 19 everyone that you look at, even people that are very 20 conservative, are telling us we need to be careful. We need 21 to look at what's going on. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How many Kerr County 23 employees are eligible for food stamps? 24 MS. HYDE: Everyone that is in our Grade 13, 14, 25 and currently 15 are eligible for food stamps in Kerr County. 7-16-08 bwk 35 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that at or below the 2 poverty -- federal poverty level? 3 MS. HYDE: It puts them right on the lip. It puts 4 them right on the lip. If they work an extra job, then they 5 go over that lip, and then they lose their stamps, or they 6 can lose any of the benefits the state and federal government 7 gives them. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: How -- do we have any 9 information or, I guess, data that's easily accessible as to 10 how many of our employees -- how far away from, I guess, 11 their work they live? For example, and I know James Avery -- 12 I know a lot of people in Kerrville drive to Fredericksburg; 13 people in Fredericksburg drive to Kerrville and back, and, 14 you know, we have the same issues with lots of our people. 15 MS. HYDE: We have a lot of folks that are on the 16 edges. And by "edges," I mean they live in Medina, Bandera, 17 they live in Center Point, Hunt, Comfort, Ingram. So, yes, 18 sir, we have a lot of folks that live that way. 19 AUDIENCE: Fredericksburg. 20 MS. HYDE: Fredericksburg, Harper. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: When we did the -- the survey study 22 for the economic development plan generally in the county, we 23 came up with 21 percent don't live in Kerr County of our 24 labor force, of our workers. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I would -- I thought that would 7-16-08 bwk 36 1 be the case. I just wanted to know if there was extra data. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: That's data from last year. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You can -- you can use those 4 same figures, basically, for Kerr County employees? 5 JUDGE TINLEY: This was county-wide. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, I understand. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: So I -- you know, I don't know that 8 we can say with -- 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that what you're saying? 10 JUDGE TINLEY: -- with scientific certainty. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're using Kerr County 12 employees only, aren't you? 13 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. You know, I was 15 listening yesterday to them talk about how some of the 16 counties are going to the four-day work week, and I don't 17 know. You know, Bexar County's talking about it right now. 18 And I don't know if we're large enough to even consider that, 19 but if we are, we probably need to talk about that. I mean, 20 I can see -- I can see what they're doing. You're talking 21 about fuel savings and several other things. And I'm just 22 not sure we have enough employees to even consider doing 23 something like that, if there would be a savings. But -- 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think we ought to throw it 25 out there. I think what we should do -- 7-16-08 bwk 37 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sorry, I can't hear you. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think we should throw that 3 idea out for discussion. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, sure. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And also let our department 6 heads and elected officials survey their -- their employees 7 and see if that would be an option, and if there could be 8 some cost savings, which I think there would be. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I do too. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Plus it would give those 11 employees that wanted to take advantage of maybe part-time 12 jobs to subsidize their income, and I think we can cut some 13 of our cost by having a four-day work week. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If you had a 10-hour -- if 15 the courthouse was open a 10-hour day, as opposed to eight or 16 seven and a half in some cases, then the public has more 17 access to their -- their daily business, or government 18 business. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I really would like to see 20 the department heads and elected officials survey their 21 employees and see if they'd be interested in doing it. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Part of the equation is it 23 reduces the County's operating cost for facilities. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Exactly. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't know yet. Somebody 7-16-08 bwk 38 1 would have to give us a formula for the reduction of one 2 fifth, as opposed to the increase of two hours per day. But 3 that's part of the equation. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, and what I'm thinking 5 -- well, I'm thinking like a flex time, where you're talking 6 about the courthouse will be open five days a week, just 7 different employees on a given day. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You could do it that way 9 too. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: That would be another option, to 11 have a five-day -- have a five-day program, but employees -- 12 but that creates a lot of personnel management problems, and 13 with offices with a smaller number of personnel, it creates 14 complications. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I just don't think it would 16 work. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Doesn't do anything for 18 facilities operations, reducing operating costs. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But it's just that the issue of 20 -- of cutting -- having some of the courthouse closed, or 21 only open four days a week, there's a possible down side. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There's a down side, but the 23 good side is that people that are working 8:00 to 5:00 jobs 24 could come in before they go to work and do their business, 25 and after they leave from work. 7-16-08 bwk 39 1 MS. HYDE: A couple of things to also consider, 2 though. Three of your biggest areas -- law enforcement, Road 3 and Bridge, and our J.D.C. -- largest populations, they're 24 4 by 7, except for Road and Bridge. Now, of course, they're on 5 call, but the difference is -- Leonard and I have talked 6 about this as well -- you're increasing your risk to those 7 folks. Why? Ten hours outside right now in the Texas sun? 8 Your production level goes like this, and our safety issues 9 go like that. So, he and I have talked about it. Not to 10 mention that you also -- when you go from five 8's to four 11 10's, the four 10 guys and gals now earn overtime after 10, 12 right? But we pay them for, currently, sick time at 10 13 hours, vacation time, holiday time, so it is an increase in 14 pure dollars if you go to four 10's. In one small office, we 15 already figured it. It's going to be about four grand just 16 on holiday time as an increase. 17 MR. ODOM: And the sick leave. 18 MS. HYDE: And the sick leave. So, most people, 19 when they work 10's or 12's, they're doing shift work, or 20 types of shift work. One suggestion might be if we want to 21 give more time to the public and open the offices longer, 22 people can do flexible start times. You come in at 7:00, you 23 come in at 8:00, you come in at 9:00, and those people stay 24 later, so that you have 7 o'clock openings and you have 25 6 o'clock closings. Nobody wants to really look at that. 7-16-08 bwk 40 1 And if we close -- if we close the courthouse, you're 2 absolutely right, someone needs to figure out -- because 3 you're still going to have power; you're still going to use 4 air conditioning, you're still going to use heat, and those 5 things are still going to be constant. We don't turn down 6 the heaters. We don't turn down the air conditioning on the 7 weekends. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We should. We're going to be 9 closed for three days. 10 MS. HYDE: I know. I know, but these are ways that 11 we can start -- you know, we turn off the lights, but we 12 don't power down. John's started a new power-down -- 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Four-day work week, if you've 14 got three days off, the systems need to be turned down. 15 MS. HYDE: Right. John started -- 16 MR. BOLLIER: Air conditioners are set at night 17 where they are not -- they are pre-occupied, where they're 18 not occupied. They're set on a total -- sir? 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Thermostat controls are 20 different. Some of them are occupied times and non-occupied 21 times. 22 MR. BOLLIER: They're unoccupied at night. They're 23 unoccupied at night; they are set to a higher temperature, to 24 where they come on at 7 o'clock in the morning to -- to the 25 occupied time during the day. 7-16-08 bwk 41 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Everywhere except in my 3 office. 4 MS. HYDE: So, the point is, there'd be no real 5 change. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Except everybody on earth 7 can do these things and make it work, but when it gets to 8 Kerr County, we can't do it. The sky starts falling. Why? 9 MS. HYDE: It's not the sky is falling. We just 10 want to make sure you have all sides of it. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 12 MS. HYDE: It is going to be a nightmare for some 13 of the medium-sized offices to control. The Sheriff's Office 14 uses shift work. Kevin Stanton's group uses shift work. How 15 hard is it, guys, to manage the shift workers? When you got 16 folks out, it's hard. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Before she completely kills 18 the thing, I still think that your idea -- I'd like to know 19 what the employees think about it, at least, and go from 20 there. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't see how it 22 increases -- 23 MS. BOLIN: Tax Office already said yes. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The Tax Office? 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What they're saying is you have 7-16-08 bwk 42 1 a 10-hour holiday. If you give them -- if every vacation is 2 -- it's a 10-hour day versus an 8-hour day. Or if you're 3 sick -- 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Still 40 hours, though. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, but it's your holidays 7 and your sick time. Those become -- 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Could that not be adjusted? 9 Or is that federal law? 10 MS. HYDE: No. And if you go through four 10's, 11 and let's say, you know, after the election, the economy 12 straightens back out and everybody comes home and everything 13 starts going back in line. You can't swap from -- you can go 14 from five 8's to four 10's, no problem, because your F.L.S.A. 15 laws will cover it, and you'll be okay with your hourly 16 rates. But going from 10's back to 8's, guess what? There's 17 guidelines. If you have so much time that you've worked 18 10-hour schedules versus 8-hour schedules, when you go back, 19 the employees can say that should all be overtime, 'cause my 20 year was really five 8's and not four 10's. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're not talking about going 22 back. 23 MS. HYDE: Okay. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're talking about going 25 forward. 7-16-08 bwk 43 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Bruce, what the issue is -- 2 Bruce, what the issue is is what Jonathan said. It's -- and 3 I run into it because we work 12's, okay? That what is now 4 currently an 8-hour holiday, all right, is now a 10-hour 5 holiday, because they're off the whole day, right? Or 6 they're working that whole day. So, instead of having eight 7 hours of holiday pay, now you got ten hours holiday pay, and 8 trying to flex that off -- sick leave is the same way. It 9 really gets difficult trying to do that, because they say, 10 "I'm working the whole holiday." You know, "Why am I only 11 getting eight hours for it? I'm working this 10." 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: As far as your situation, 13 it's going to be that way from now on, because you do 24/7. 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah, mine doesn't change. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yours doesn't change. And 16 Road and Bridge -- well, actually, I think is somewhat doing 17 this now. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, you could soften the impact on 19 holidays if you made the -- the four-day week Tuesday through 20 Friday, because a lot of the holidays are mandated on Monday. 21 MS. HYDE: Holidays are on Mondays. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a thought. 23 MS. HYDE: You still have to pay them straight time 24 for the holiday. If it's a holiday, an approved holiday, we 25 pay it regardless of whether you work or don't. 7-16-08 bwk 44 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If we can save fuel, or if 2 there's a possibility of saving fuel and things like that, I 3 think we'd -- let's talk about it at least. That's what 4 we're talking about. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think you'd get more 6 productivity. I understand 10 hours is long, but I tell you 7 what, if I were given the option, if I were one of the 8 employees, I would much rather put in four 10's and have a 9 three-day weekend to be able to do the things I would prefer. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think you'll find that 12 category -- at first, when I went to 12's, 'cause that's what 13 we work, we thought 12 was a long time. But if you actually 14 look at how long that employee -- you know, ours are at least 15 doing paperwork, things like that. But by the time they came 16 to work, got back home, it was really right at 12 hours 17 anyway, 10 to 12 hours. The employees really enjoy it 18 better; it doesn't affect them that much. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree, 'cause I think you -- 20 on a 10-hour work day, you have a lot of start-up and 21 wind-down times that is wasted time from a productivity 22 standpoint, and you can get rid of that. And I don't mean -- 23 nothing against the employees. It's just a matter of 24 start-up and close-down. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I bet you can put your 7-16-08 bwk 45 1 hands on studies that -- that have researched productivity of 2 a 10-hour day, four days, times the 40-hour work week, five 3 times 8, can't you? I'll bet you they're going to show the 4 productivity drops. 5 MS. HYDE: And I didn't want to say it, 'cause 6 Commissioner Baldwin already feels like I'm downing it. It's 7 not that I'm downing it. Productivity normally shows a spurt 8 during the first 30 to 90 days, but then it starts coming -- 9 it starts declining, and it just follows the same route as if 10 you're working 8 hours or 10 hours or 12 hours. If the 11 production in 8 hours is 6, then the production in 10 will be 12 8, and the production in 12 will be 10. There's a loss of an 13 hour to two hours in most jobs anywhere you go. So, you 14 know, it's -- it's -- it doesn't matter. Any way that would 15 help would be great. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You don't have the same loss 17 in an 8-hour work day? 18 MS. HYDE: Sure. Sure. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You're only getting six. 20 MS. HYDE: That's what I'm saying. You're getting 21 six, and then you're getting eight. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You're actually -- 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You pick up two hours. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Pick up two hours. 25 MS. HYDE: Pick up two hours out of the loss. 7-16-08 bwk 46 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Out of the loss. Is there -- 2 are there any regulations about having to do it county-wide, 3 or can you do it department by department? 4 MS. HYDE: You can do it however you want to. The 5 deal is, we just really have to watch going from five 8's to 6 four 10's. You can change, but if anyone changes back, 7 that's when we really have to -- 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, okay. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Uecker? She had a question for 10 Eva, I'm sure. 11 MS. UECKER: No, I just wanted to tell you that I 12 did that for two and a half years. We remained open five 13 days a week, but my staff worked four 10-hour days. They 14 loved it. I didn't, 'cause it was a scheduling headache. 15 And, finally, when I got some new staff and people wanted to 16 trade days, I finally said, "Okay, that's it; it's enough." 17 But they did like it. But it might be different if you 18 actually were closed the same day every week. There wouldn't 19 that be scheduling. But I did do it for two and a half 20 years, and they liked it. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: If you close one of those days, you 22 take the personnel management issue out of it. 23 MS. UECKER: Right, and that was my point. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Leonard? 25 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. I tried this several years 7-16-08 bwk 47 1 ago when I came here, and it worked for a good while. 2 Scheduling was a deal, because I had to go five days a week, 3 so I split up my forces at that point, and I was weak because 4 of sealcoat. Then I had problems with sick leave. I would 5 end up basically looking at three-day -- you know, three days 6 out of some people. Then I hit the 10's and what you had to 7 do and what they made and what they were being charged. It's 8 not -- you know, if we're off and I don't have to do that, 9 maybe it would eliminate that, but we had to maintain that. 10 It just was not productive. And then the wintertime, I had 11 to go to a five-day work week, because it's ludicrous to be 12 out there in the dark, because you're not going to -- it's 13 wasted time; they're not going to get anything done, and 14 they're going to be there on the road before the people start 15 coming to work. It's not good, and I lose the productivity. 16 So, you know, we went back to fives and we tried it. And I 17 warned the guys for several years there that we ran it, 18 Bruce -- 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I know. 20 MR. ODOM: -- but they were abusing what I thought 21 was sick leave, because I was ending up with people -- you 22 know, crews were short. And I've only got three-man crews. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Mm-hmm. 24 MR. ODOM: So -- but I had to -- I had to man five 25 days a week. It's not that -- theoretically, it's there, and 7-16-08 bwk 48 1 I would probably save fuel and it probably would do it. But 2 if we were off and the people knew that, it may work. But I 3 had to stay there five days. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If you were there four days, 5 would it work? 6 MR. ODOM: Pardon? 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If you were there four days 8 and closed for three, that would work? 9 MR. ODOM: I would say that we probably could, but 10 before I didn't do that; I kept it mandatory. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Except for winter. I think you 12 have a good point, in winter. 13 MR. ODOM: Wintertime, it's really ludicrous, 14 unless you change the time. But it's even short in the 15 evening, and it's certainly dark in the morning. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You just go to earlier; you 17 show up at work at 6 o'clock. 18 MR. ODOM: But you understand, if it's really cold, 19 you don't do anything with that diesel engine until it warms 20 up. 'Cause if it's too early in the morning, it's too cold. 21 I'm just saying that there's a lot of things -- 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: But that's rare. That's not 23 an everyday thing, when it's so cold the morning, whatever. 24 It's really not. I mean, we have winters that are 25 periodically, but they are -- 7-16-08 bwk 49 1 MR. ODOM: I'm not talking about Alaska. I'm 2 talking about maintainers and stuff like that, and I'm just 3 telling you, there's some things there. But if we were down, 4 maybe so. But before when I tried it, it was a five-day work 5 week. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: My dad used to tell me when 7 it was cold, you did the work a little faster. (Laughter.) 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Only issue you have to also 9 look at -- it can work, 'cause as you know, we do it all the 10 time; I don't have a choice. But one issue you do have to 11 look at, and I mentioned to it Bruce earlier, is that where 12 you've got single parents or both parents work, and you got 13 kids that are in day care and things like that, that you have 14 to watch your hours of those operations to be able to control 15 that. We have that issue a lot in our office, where 16 different people that are off will work out something for 17 them to pick up the other one's kids and that because of the 18 -- the shift-type stuff. So, you have to watch that when you 19 get over that 8-hour day. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Pro and con to everything. 21 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's just work. 23 MR. ODOM: If it's directed by the Court, that's 24 what -- we'll come up with a plan, okay? If that's your 25 direction. 7-16-08 bwk 50 1 MS. UECKER: Well, and to his -- his response about 2 the child care issues, you know, and I'm a big advocate of 3 taking responsibility for ourselves after hours. I mean, I 4 don't think the County should be responsible for making sure 5 that, you know, everybody's kids get picked up. I mean, I 6 had to do it myself when I was working and had little ones. 7 MR. ODOM: These days, it's different times. 8 MS. UECKER: Unfortunately. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hyde, I'm sure that all of this 10 information you've given us is leading to something, or as 11 indicated, that we're being set up for something. 12 MS. HYDE: I'm not done with the other things I 13 need you to ponder. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 15 MS. HYDE: We need to ponder changing the payment 16 of our comp time for holiday pay. Currently, in several 17 departments, the comp time for holiday pay is -- is banked. 18 They can -- they can use it for time off. We've talked about 19 it. And the comp time for holiday pay should be paid; it's 20 budgeted already. We budget holiday payment for all the 21 employees. When we get the holiday, it needs to be paid. 22 That way we're not banking additional time, 'cause that hits 23 our liability lines. 24 MR. ODOM: Say again? 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Pay the overtime -- 7-16-08 bwk 51 1 MS. HYDE: If they worked. If they didn't work, 2 they get straight time. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. 4 MS. HYDE: 'Cause those times are going into banks 5 that keep growing. So, we have some banks that are large, 6 and we all know that. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We have some that are -- 8 MS. HARGIS: Huge. 9 MS. HYDE: And what happens is, if I'm making $10 10 an hour this year when I earn it, but I've been here five 11 years, and it sits in that bank, and now I'm making $20 an 12 hour, then you're paying me at $20 an hour, not the $10. So, 13 it is -- it does cost us quite a bit. We're talking 13 14 holidays; it should be paid as we go. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Do we not have a policy that 16 requires comp time to either be paid or taken within -- my 17 recollection was 90 days. 18 MS. HYDE: It was 90 days, but on comp time for the 19 holiday pay, that was on a separate item. And when you start 20 ending all these times that are banked, it gets difficult, 21 especially in your shift work, for them to ever use it. 22 Because in your shift work, if you're on two, off two, on 23 two, off three -- you know, if you take off two days, you got 24 four days. That's like a vacation. So, using the time when 25 you work jobs like that is less, so they keep banking more 7-16-08 bwk 52 1 and more and it keeps growing. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: What you're saying is, if we need 3 to -- if we want that holiday comp to be included as part of 4 the -- we need to specifically include it under the policy? 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What is that? 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Is that what you're telling me? 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: All it is, what she's talking 8 about, that's an example in a big department. That's what my 9 current stats are right now, holiday and comp and vacation. 10 Current employees, as you can see, it gets extremely large. 11 That's just my information. 12 MS. HYDE: All I'm asking is that holiday pay is 13 paid as the holiday occurs. So, we're already in the budget. 14 We need to just go ahead and make it a policy, for y'all to 15 ponder that we make that a policy. You get holiday pay; 16 that's in our benefits. We pay it. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, Sheriff, looking at -- you've 18 got vacation in here also, and I note some of those are in 19 excess of 160 hours. The personnel policy says as of the 20 beginning of any fiscal year, any accrued vacation time in 21 excess of 160 is lopped off. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I have no issue with that 23 if I had the personnel to be able to give those guys that 24 time off. But when a person cannot take it, or he's taken 25 it, but in that same pay period he's put in so much overtime 7-16-08 bwk 53 1 that it washes out what he's taken, okay, you can't do 2 anything about that. It goes up and there's nothing I can 3 do, and we carry it on the books. I don't know what else to 4 do with that. I think it's totally unfair to people not to 5 give it to them off. They would take it off in a heartbeat, 6 Judge, if they could, okay? But if we force them to take it 7 off, then you're not going to have a patrolman one on the 8 streets at times. You can see that by the amount of time 9 that is in both the jail and the Sheriff's Office. It's a -- 10 it's an issue when it comes to manpower. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Are these people not requesting -- 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, they request. Their 13 supervisor tries to force them to take it off. We assign -- 14 you can ask some of the former employees here. We assign 15 them time off, but then during that same pay period, 16 something will happen and they will be putting in overtime, 17 okay? I had a man -- one this last pay period; he asked for 18 60 hours off for vacation, all right? He was denied 30 of 19 it, because we didn't have the manpower. Other people had to 20 put in for it, okay? So, then he had 30 hours he'd taken 21 off, and as of last night, when he was called back in because 22 we had an incident in the jail, he had already gone over in 23 regular time, as of this morning, 24 hours. So, now you took 24 the 30 he was approved to be off, but he's already put in 25 another 24 hours of overtime, so the only thing he's not 7-16-08 bwk 54 1 getting paid is overtime, but he's not losing that vacation 2 time. So, the only vacation time he's actually going to lose 3 is six hours, when he tried to take 30. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Are you going to be arrested 5 by the constable and thrown in jail for not letting people 6 take their time off? 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That could probably happen, 8 'cause he's one of the ones that lost it in this area, yeah. 9 But that's the issue, and I'm not -- we need to stay on this. 10 That was just for information. I'm not trying to start 11 anything. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Well -- 13 MS. HYDE: The only reason why I bought it up -- I 14 didn't know you were going to throw that out there, but the 15 reason I bring it up, that will help decrease some of these 16 excessive, over 160 hours. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That will help a lot. 18 MS. HYDE: Because they got to use it. That's 13 19 more days that they -- that you get off with pay before you 20 ever have to start using vacation time that you're earning as 21 you go. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And what she was saying, if 23 I've lost some of those people and we paid it, some of those 24 hours are quite a bit. They earned those hours three years 25 ago. Some of them, I'm still trying to get rid of from over 7-16-08 bwk 55 1 eight years ago, from prior to my taking office, okay? 2 JUDGE TINLEY: It occurs to me -- 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Now they're getting paid at 4 today's rate, compared to the rate they earned it at. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: It occurs to me, then, that we -- 6 what we really need to do is change the policy instead of 7 saying that anything over 160 at the beginning of each fiscal 8 year, you lose, to you lose it if you ask to take the time 9 off and were denied the right to take the time off. Is that 10 not correct? 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What we do -- and just to set 12 this straight, if I lose an employee, okay, they actually 13 only get paid for the 160, all right? But this is what 14 they've earned. Now, you also have the holiday time in 15 there. I guess in a lot of ways, they do get paid for the 16 full amount, because what we will -- what we have to do 17 sometimes to do it is, I lose -- today is their last day of 18 actual work, okay, but then you have to let them burn that 19 off, and their last day of actual employment may be a month 20 down the road, and I'm without them, and everybody else's 21 adds up. But I don't want to sidetrack -- she brought -- I 22 didn't even know she was going to bring that up. 23 MS. HYDE: I wasn't going to tell anybody. 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I just had those figures, and 25 I thought, to show the importance, that I'd let you see 7-16-08 bwk 56 1 those. That should probably come up at a different time in 2 my budget discussion. 3 MS. HYDE: I hadn't mentioned any names or any 4 offices. All I was trying to do was get us to pay the comp 5 time, 'cause I think it'll help on all our numbers in the 6 liability. 7 MR. STANTON: I mean, I guess at the Detention 8 Center, one of the issues that we run into -- it's not 9 exactly like the Sheriff's, though -- is that is when you 10 have people that -- that resign or people that get fired for 11 whatever reason, leave your employment, then you're looking 12 at affecting your payroll, your total payroll, by having to 13 pay all this off. I mean, if you're having to pay off 300 14 hours of vacation time and 150 hours of comp time and, you 15 know, 60 hours of holiday time, well, that takes a big chunk 16 out of your budget, which affects everybody else in your 17 department. 18 MS. HYDE: Right. That's why you end up with short 19 staff and then they start working overtime, because they 20 can't hire somebody 'cause they've still got somebody on the 21 payroll. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does she have a solution? 23 JUDGE TINLEY: She's going to get -- 24 MS. HYDE: It was real simple; it was a sentence 25 that we just pay the holiday pay to everyone as the holiday 7-16-08 bwk 57 1 occurs. I wasn't going into get into all of that. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. Sit down. 3 You're pretty close to sitting down, aren't you? 4 MS. HYDE: Uh-huh. With the cost of fuel, some of 5 the J.P.'s have talked to me, and I've talked to a couple of 6 y'all. Would it be possible to consider putting in a car or 7 a vehicle that can be shared by all four J.P.'s? The Sheriff 8 said that he would, you know, monitor, make sure that the car 9 was where it needed to be. But then, that way, they would 10 have a vehicle for on-call, or to look at some sort of 11 supplement for their on-call for mileage. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd rather purchase a car, 13 myself. I'd rather have the car out there and it be one of 14 these sissy cars that saves fuel, Prius or -- 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: A hybrid. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, hybrid is what I'm 17 trying to say. "Sissy" is the wrong choice of words, I'm 18 sorry. But a hybrid vehicle like everybody else is doing to 19 save fuel. I'm certainly in favor of that. I can see -- I 20 see what you're saying and what they're saying. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just for use on the on-call 22 weeks? Is that what you're talking about? 23 MS. HYDE: Right, for their on-call. It wouldn't 24 be their personal vehicle. You know, it would be shared. 25 And the Sheriff said that he would look over it. We could 7-16-08 bwk 58 1 park it here or park it over at the Sheriff's office. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Wait a minute. 3 MS. HYDE: You said you'd monitor -- 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I thought you were talking 5 about a courthouse car that would stay here for courthouse 6 employees to run back and forth. 7 MS. HYDE: Well, it would be both. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's what you asked me. 9 MS. HYDE: There were two -- I said two cars. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I agree with J.P.'s needing 11 it, but as far as us taking care of the -- I don't think we 12 would need to. If they each take it the week they're on 13 call, and that's -- and that's their -- you know, their deal 14 to maintain and take care of it. I don't think the Sheriff's 15 office has anything to do with that. 16 MS. HYDE: We were just going to make sure it 17 didn't get stolen. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's their problem. 19 (Laughter.) How can I make sure of that? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd like to hear from the 21 J.P.'s on that, because I think you also end up with saying 22 that car can then only be used -- it'd be the same policy 23 that Road and Bridge has and Sheriff has; they can't stop at 24 the store on the way home. I mean, they have to -- so 25 they're going to have to go from the courthouse -- get in 7-16-08 bwk 59 1 their car and drive to the courthouse, and then go from there 2 to State Hospital, and come back here and get in their car 3 and go to the grocery store. I mean, I'm not sure it's going 4 to save them any money. 5 AUDIENCE: That's twice as many miles. 6 MR. BILLEITER: This is the first I've heard of 7 this. I don't see how that would work. I really don't. It 8 sounds like a nightmare to me. I come here, park my car, get 9 in another car and drive? I'd -- and plus I'm on call every 10 day. I mean, I make three trips in a day sometimes, because 11 the hospital's in my precinct. That's where a lot of people 12 die. So, that wouldn't help me a bit. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Far as I'm concerned, the 14 conversation's over. That's my J.P. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think -- I think from a -- we 16 may want to look at something we got rid of a long time ago, 17 is a vehicle allowance. 18 MS. HYDE: Right, and that was part two. A car or 19 a vehicle allowance. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's more workable. 21 MS. HYDE: Did you hear the second part? 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I want to see these little 23 green things, though. 24 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 25 MS. HYDE: That's it. That's all the things I've 7-16-08 bwk 60 1 got. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: In my mind, it's kind of like 3 the constables. You need to give them all one, or you don't 4 give any of them one, the ones that you give them a car 5 allowance. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Too much logistics in that. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It just won't -- I don't 8 believe it -- it's time for that. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You -- 10 MS. HYDE: Are you going to hit the panic button? 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: All hell breaks loose. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are we done yet? 13 MS. HYDE: I got two more things. One is the 14 request for the retirement. We talked about -- last year it 15 went from 180 to 210, and we've talked about it going up 16 again this year to 230, and I'd like for y'all to ponder 17 that. It is in the budget currently. 18 MS. HARGIS: Not all of it, no. 19 MS. HYDE: It's not? 20 MS. HARGIS: No. 21 MS. HYDE: Okay, it's not. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 210 is. 23 MS. HYDE: 210 is. 24 MS. HARGIS: 210 is. Right now, we're at 9.52. 25 9.52, and the current rate would go to 9.55. So, just to 7-16-08 bwk 61 1 keep the current rate, to go to the 220, it's 9.94, and then 2 to the 230 is 10.35. It's not very much money. To go to the 3 220 is $30,000. To go to the 230 is $63,000. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How much? 5 MS. HYDE: Sixty-three. 6 MS. HARGIS: 63,000. So, it's not a lot of -- 7 because you're not talking large -- you're just talking 8 tenths here. So, in the overall scope of things, it's not 9 that much, but it's not plugged in now because it hadn't been 10 approved, and I didn't want to plug something in that wasn't 11 approved. 12 MS. HYDE: We tried to go to 250; that became cost 13 prohibitive. It, like, doubled. 14 MS. HARGIS: Yeah. After 230, it goes to 15 200-something thousand dollars; it really jumps, because 16 you're at 10 percent, so then you go to 11, then to 12. So 17 then it really starts to -- so we'd have to take, you know, 18 either one increment or two. I think that's the max we could 19 go. 20 MS. HYDE: So we're requesting the 2.3, 230, $2.30, 21 230 percent, however you want to -- 22 JUDGE TINLEY: 2.3. 23 MS. HARGIS: And that includes the group term life 24 insurance, and a 14 percent for the COLA for the retirees. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: .14 cost for 50 percent COLA-based 7-16-08 bwk 62 1 increase, right? For retirees? 2 MS. HYDE: Right. Okay. I think the last thing in 3 this, unless y'all have something else, is that based on all 4 this stuff, all this stuff that we've talked about, we've 5 talked with all of the department heads. That means elected, 6 appointed, directors, whatever we want to call them, and what 7 they have all agreed to is that we believe that we should ask 8 for a 10 percent across-the-board raise. There's the shoe. 9 However, what everyone did -- we met yesterday. We didn't 10 hide it. I think everybody kind of heard us whispering about 11 it Monday in court. We all talked about it, and everyone's 12 looking at their budget to see what else can they cut. We've 13 had two of the biggest groups, Road and Bridge and Sheriff's 14 office, had whacked theirs huge, between half a million to a 15 million dollars when you start pulling it all together. Is 16 that not correct? That we've pulled out. Everyone's agreed 17 they'll go back and look. 18 There's a few folks that are still going to push 19 very, very hard -- and, I mean, I don't see why not; that 20 they do deserve some people and need some people, but they'll 21 do that in their individual budgets. As far as cutting, 22 everyone's looking. And I think I stand here not just by 23 myself on an island, but I think that that's why everyone is 24 in here. They're willing to do whatever is necessary -- all 25 of us are -- to try not to make it where, okay, where we got 7-16-08 bwk 63 1 to grow the budget, and we want this raise for our people. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're talking about 3 $800,000. 4 MS. HYDE: Be about a million. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are you saying a 10 percent 6 salary increase? Salary increase? 7 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: For elected officials? 9 MS. HYDE: Everyone. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Everyone across the board? 11 MS. HYDE: Everyone. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that takes care of the 13 milk at H.E.B. 14 MS. HYDE: I hope so. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And the gasoline and the -- 16 those damn people that pick up my trash. 17 MS. HYDE: B.F.I. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Electric bill. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, all those things. The 20 10 percent will take care of that? 21 MS. HYDE: It does two things. And they might like 22 to throw stuff at me; that's why I get real nervous when 23 they're all behind me. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see here -- 25 MS. HYDE: There's two -- 7-16-08 bwk 64 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- on something you gave us 2 that it -- we see that one of the indexes said 7 percent. 3 MS. HYDE: Right. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And we're talking 10 now. 5 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. There's two things. If you 6 look at -- and I'm going to use our housekeeping staff and 7 kennel workers; they're 13's. We also have -- a lot of our 8 staffs are 13's and 14's right now, and that average wage for 9 those folks is $24,500. And they've been here not, like, one 10 or two years; we're talking six and seven years. So, I said, 11 okay, last year I bombed when I tried to do it by county, so 12 this year I'm going to do it by the city. We have three 13 major people that we compete with for our people. We're the 14 bottom. We are the absolute bottom. And I'd rather not name 15 them, 'cause I'm afraid that I'm going to get, like, blasted, 16 but we're between $2,000 and $6,000 off all our job classes. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Name them. City? 18 MS. HYDE: The City of Kerrville, the hospitals, 19 and Avery's. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 21 MS. HYDE: I didn't use Mooney's, 'cause I'm 22 unsure. Mooney, when they're running well -- and even they 23 have done the layoff. Everyone knows they've had a large 24 layoff. But, you know, I will use the housekeeping. If I go 25 to work for these other places as a housekeeper, I'm going to 7-16-08 bwk 65 1 start out at 28,5, and our folks start out at 23. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I agree 100 percent. 3 We've got -- things are getting tough. They really are 4 getting tough. 5 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And I think that we have to 7 step up to the plate and take care of our county employees, 8 and then if we don't get pencils in your office, I couldn't 9 care less. Unless you go to Number 3 leads and Big Chiefs. 10 But I just think we need to settle on what the number's going 11 to be, whether it's 10 or 11 or 7. You know, I just -- 12 MS. HYDE: I'm requesting 10 percent. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's my question, is where 14 -- where is that number? I agree that we need to move to 15 something, and I'm there 100 percent. 16 MS. HYDE: It does two things. One, you know, it's 17 real easy to say it's because bread prices have risen and gas 18 prices have risen, but, you know, we all understand that 19 trends are cyclical. So right now, yes, inflations's going 20 up. Some people say it's the '70's and '80's all over again. 21 But what happened? Then we go back down and we have really 22 great times. So let's be optimistic. I'll be optimistic and 23 say, okay, the election's going to solve it. We're going to 24 come back down. Our folks, even with a 10 percent raise -- 25 forget inflation, forget all this other superfluous stuff. 7-16-08 bwk 66 1 Look at just where we're at. Our folks are the lowest paid. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 3 MS. HYDE: So, to me, that's hitting two bases at 4 one time. As inflation and -- and things decrease again -- 5 you know, I don't think I'll ever see the price of gas at two 6 bucks again in my lifetime, but it brings us closer into this 7 realm. When you talk about Kendall County and Gillespie 8 County trying to hire for law enforcement -- I know that we 9 said it yesterday; he brings a lot of stuff up. But trying 10 to hire for law enforcement, it's not just law enforcement 11 any more. I'm trying to hire a maintenance guy or gal. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 13 MS. HYDE: And it's shrinking. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You hit on a good point, 15 too. If Obama gets elected, I mean, all of our problems are 16 over. We don't even have to come to work. (Laughter.) We 17 won't even have to come to work; they will just send us a 18 check to the house and we can just lay around. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are you talking about 20 $800,000 as being a -- 21 MS. HYDE: It's like -- it's about $800,000 to 22 $850,000 straight, and then Jeannie is the numbers lady; 23 she's got to give you guys the numbers. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. My point is, or is 25 going to be, in this discussion, this community-wide 7-16-08 bwk 67 1 discussion that took place, -- 2 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- you came up with this 4 magic number of 10. 5 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which would equate to twice 7 the C.P.I. 8 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If we consider this, it's 10 going to end up around 5 percent or more. 11 MS. HYDE: Right. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Did you also talk about how 13 you're going to help us get there? 14 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. I think I asked all of them, 15 would they be willing to look at their constituents? Would 16 they be able to talk to taxpayers and explain to them how 17 come we need to raise taxes? 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Whoa, hold on. Hold on. 19 Did you also talk about how you're going to help us get there 20 with respect to costs? Not new revenues. 21 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Costs. 23 MS. HYDE: That's why I talked about the budget. 24 Most folks are going back -- everybody said they would go 25 back and they're going to try to cut their cost back to what 7-16-08 bwk 68 1 it was this year. So, let's say there -- my little budget 2 this year was $130,000. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's $135,737. 4 MS. HYDE: So, whatever it is -- 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What are you going to cut? 6 MS. HYDE: I need to stay -- I need to stay there. 7 There is no increase, and I need to try to cut something. 8 Well, I did; I cut hours on somebody. I need to cut some of 9 my conference, and what we need to look at are things that we 10 can do in-house for training. You know, if everyone just 11 tightens their belt a little bit, then -- Jeannie, any time 12 you want to step up here and start talking numbers with me, 13 I'd appreciate it. That -- 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I want to know -- I want to 15 know, what kind of tax increase are we talking about? 16 Two pennies? Four pennies? 17 MS. HARGIS: Probably around 3.15. And then we're 18 going to have to go up on Leonard's .08. That's as much as 19 he can go, 'cause his rollback is .0312. He's at -- at .0304 20 right now. We -- we took a little bit from him last year. 21 He could have gone to 3.9, and we drew at .0309. And that 22 would probably held him level. Leonard has cut his budget as 23 well. Leonard has done very well with his budget this year, 24 so his fund balance coming in is going to help him to offset 25 what he needs to do there. With the general fund, last 7-16-08 bwk 69 1 Thursday we had an $891,000 deficit. I worked on that for 2 eight hours, with the Sheriff coming into my office, tweaking 3 the revenue and really looking hard at everything we had. I 4 zeroed that out. Now, you guys haven't gone through and 5 looked at everybody else's budget. After yesterday, 6 everybody agreed to go back -- we have 49 departments, and so 7 I kind of gave them an idea; if you can cut 100, if you can 8 cut 500, whatever it is, times 49, you're looking at a lot of 9 money. The Judge has already cut 64,000. I'm watching what 10 he's doing compared to requested. We need a million -- 11 little bit better than a million, and that includes 12 everybody. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Jeannie? Are we talking two 14 and a half cents? 15 MS. HARGIS: Two for y'all, and then -- and then 16 the Road and Bridge, .08. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. 18 MS. HARGIS: So, 2.25. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 2.25. 20 MS. HARGIS: 2.13 will do it, but I think, you 21 know, when you get into odd pennies, it's kind of hard to do. 22 I'd rather you go to 2.15. And we're talking two-tenths of a 23 cent here. I think that will get us to where we need to be. 24 We have pretty much zeroed out this year's budget. We really 25 started at a million six, so considering that, before it even 7-16-08 bwk 70 1 got to you guys, we got it down to zero, and I think you'll 2 look at that. I think that's pretty good. Now, people have 3 looked and -- and I don't see many increases. The biggest 4 thing is fuel. The next thing that we're going to have to go 5 back and look at is group insurance. I'm going to have to go 6 back to group insurance. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait a minute. You're 8 getting out of bounds here too much. I want to stay on this 9 salary thing just -- just for a moment. I mean, I just want 10 to be clear in my mind so I can either help you or tell you 11 to hush. 2.3 cents? 12 MS. HARGIS: 2.25. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 2.25 cents will generate 14 enough money for a -- for a salary increase for all of our 15 employees to stay up with inflation, basically? 16 MS. HARGIS: Yes, sir. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that's all we're talking 18 about, is a salary increase. We're talking about a tax 19 increase to cover a salary increase so that our employees 20 don't have to be on food stamps. 21 MS. HARGIS: That's correct. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, that's all I need to 23 know, thank you. Now you can launch off out there on 24 gasoline and all that other stuff. 25 MS. HARGIS: I'll wait till later. 7-16-08 bwk 71 1 JUDGE TINLEY: How many employees did -- did we 2 lose last year? 3 MS. HYDE: Total? 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm, approximately. 5 MS. HYDE: The Sheriff was in a constant state of 6 flux. He always had -- and sometimes he and I discuss 7 terminology. He calls it openings. He doesn't have 8 openings. As soon as they -- they quit or get fired or 9 separate, whatever, he's hired someone else, so it's constant 10 churn. So, it appears that it's open, but it's not, because 11 it takes time to train those folks. To answer your question, 12 we lost between 25 and 50 people last year. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. How many of those did you do 14 exit interviews with? 15 MS. HYDE: About half of them. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: And do you think -- I assume you 17 asked them -- 18 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. I have ten questions. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: -- why you -- why you're taking a 20 hike. 21 MS. HYDE: Well, it's in that thing that -- I got 22 off my soapbox, 'cause Mr. Baldwin said that I was going too 23 long, so I was trying to hurry. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: You asked them why they left? 25 MS. HYDE: I did. I asked them why they left, and 7-16-08 bwk 72 1 the reason why they said they left is because they need 2 money. They need the benefits, too, but their rationale at 3 that time was that they could travel farther to get more 4 money and have the benefits. But now some of them are dying 5 like rats, 'cause they're driving to these other jobs, and 6 they had the benefits and they had the pay, but now -- now 7 they're like -- they're pretty puckered. So, now they have 8 to look at even moving, because they can't afford it. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Four I've lost this year. Two 10 of them I lost to Kendall County, okay, one just in the last 11 couple weeks, and number one, because of pay, and because of 12 gas. Two of them I lost to Kerrville Police Department, 13 because they're also paying for them to go through the 14 academy, and then it's the pay. The 10 percent figure, where 15 Buster was asking, "Why 10? Why not 7 or 12, whatever?" 16 10 percent will put Kerr County employees -- maintenance, 17 too; I'm not just talking law enforcement, okay. It will 18 still put our employees a little bit below Kerrville P.D. or 19 Kerrville -- City of Kerrville, Kendall County, Gillespie 20 County. We will still be below those. We will still be on 21 the low end, but we will be -- with the benefits package 22 that -- that the County offers, we will be competitive. 23 Right now, we're just not competitive because we're $6,000 to 24 $7,000 below those. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are you factoring in that all 7-16-08 bwk 73 1 these other entities are going to be giving an increase this 2 year? 3 MS. HYDE: Well, funny you brought that up, because 4 you -- tell him about the ones that you know of. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 6 MS. HYDE: Their request. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 10 percent -- and I'll give 8 you just an example. 10 percent starting salaries for a 9 deputy would put Kerr County at 37,240-something, okay? 10 Gillespie County is looking at -- currently, their starting 11 salary right now is 38,400 and something, and they're trying 12 to go to 40,200-something. Kendall County is trying to go to 13 39,000 -- whatever. I have some of those figures. But we're 14 still going to be behind. But our gap -- where, if you'll 15 remember, years ago our gap was so wide, it was -- it was 16 really devastating to keep good Kerr County employees, okay? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We closed it a lot. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We closed it a lot. 19 MS. HYDE: For a while. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: For a while is right. Now 21 it's wide. If it doesn't happen this year, we're going to be 22 way wide. We're going to be at almost 10,000 difference in 23 deputies. 24 MS. HYDE: The other part to this was that all 25 these -- don't leave -- all these other counties are asking 7-16-08 bwk 74 1 for increases either higher or at what we're asking for in 2 percentages. We're talking 10 percent. Some of them are 3 asking for 12 to 16 to 18 percent increases. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sheriff, what's the 5 starting salary for a K.P.D. officer? 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: K.P.D. officer currently is 7 $37,315. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And yours is? 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 32 -- 10 MS. HYDE: $32,333. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, you're $5,000 down 12 right now. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right now. 14 MS. HYDE: Mm-hmm. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. Current starting salary 16 for a Kendall County deputy is $36,410. Current starting 17 salary for a Gillespie County deputy is $38,390. And I don't 18 want this to focus on deputies. 19 MS. HYDE: No, this isn't just deputies. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: This is a scale all the way 21 down through their -- their counties. It's all about 22 equivalent. Every employee that those other counties have, 23 like all the rest of these department heads sitting behind 24 me, it's the same percentage gap. That's where we're 25 running, okay? And that's why all the department heads came 7-16-08 bwk 75 1 together, and -- and at this point, gentlemen, we're all at 2 -- at the point of this year, we will try and do anything we 3 can do to help this Court get through our employees getting a 4 10 percent across-the-board raise. And I think that's where 5 we're at, and that's what the employees need. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: To include the COLA, whatever that 7 may work out to be, -- 8 MS. HYDE: Yes. There is no COLA in addition. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: -- between 5 or 6, whatever that's 10 looking to be? 11 MS. HYDE: It's just 10. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Nothing else on top of that. 13 MS. HYDE: If you'd like some of those numbers, -- 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One question. 15 MS. HYDE: -- I'll give you copies of those 16 salaries. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The Sheriff said nothing on 18 top. Are you talking about -- in response to the Judge's 19 question whether this would include a COLA, but you're also 20 telling us that there would be no other elected official 21 salary requests on top of this? 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: As far as -- 23 MS. HYDE: What do you mean? 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What do you mean? 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If there -- if a 10 percent 7-16-08 bwk 76 1 were granted, you're not -- you're telling us that there 2 would be no other salary increase requests for elected 3 officials above that number? Is that what you're telling us? 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: As far as our group yesterday, 5 and this is the group of elected officials and department 6 heads, that's correct. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's why I asked the 8 question. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's correct. 10 MS. HYDE: People that put in on their request this 11 year -- I think everybody just about has told me or nodded, 12 if they asked to -- 'cause what people were trying to do is 13 what I talked to y'all about. We're messing up the step and 14 grade, because if they move them two or three steps, then 15 they're getting 10 percent anyhow, and we're trying to 16 justify giving people raises sometimes without there being 17 good justification. Commissioner Letz is probably the best 18 one that knocks it to me every time when I ask for a merit or 19 increase, because he makes me think about it. But we're -- 20 we're messing it up. So that's why this 10 percent -- if you 21 think of the step and grade, we're just moving them up and 22 down; we're not changing. We're just moving everything down. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree. I think that the 24 prior times when we've tried to go into certain departments 25 and make certain moves, it messes it up, 'cause all of a 7-16-08 bwk 77 1 sudden, then, that department's out of balance with the other 2 departments, and all of a sudden you get situations where 3 employees are getting paid more than their supervisors, and 4 it gets -- I mean, there's -- if there's a county-wide 5 problem, it needs to be fixed with a county-wide solution. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But that was some good 8 information there. Justification, especially on Rusty's 9 part, about -- about if we don't -- you know, I couldn't -- 10 you know, we always talk about, well, the City's doing this, 11 the City's doing that, or Boerne's doing it. I couldn't care 12 less what they do over there. 13 MS. HYDE: Right. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If we're losing good 15 employees and it's, in the long haul, costing Kerr County 16 taxpayers by losing these people, then that -- that has to be 17 addressed, and that's good information. Because you can't 18 expect us to sit up here and vote for a major tax increase in 19 this county without that kind of justification. We're not 20 going to do it. We're not going to just pull the number 10 21 out of the air and say, "Well, our employees need a salary 22 increase." You got to have some information. The taxpayers 23 deserve that information. 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I'm sure y'all are aware, 25 I've had one deputy opening all year. 7-16-08 bwk 78 1 MS. HYDE: Churn. Churn. It's churning. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Whether you call it churn or 3 call it opening, whatever. I've had a position I need -- you 4 know, that has -- has killed me on overtime, comp time, 5 things like that, because of people having to work to fill in 6 because I don't want to work -- because I can't get an 7 applicant. And the ones you do get have so much baggage with 8 them that I wouldn't ever authorize them to carry a gun on 9 the streets in this county. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How about me? I'm looking 11 for -- 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You would be one of those, 13 Buster. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. (Laughter.) 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But that's the issue. We're 16 at the point where the hill country is beautiful, but the 17 hill country isn't just Kerr County, and when the other 18 counties are doing this, we're -- we can't win that 19 competition. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, as my colleague to 21 the right would have noted, the beautiful hill country 22 doesn't pay for the milk at H.E.B. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You're right. Exactly right. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: We're probably at a good break 25 point. Why don't we take about a 15-minute recess. 7-16-08 bwk 79 1 (Recess taken from 10:44 a.m. to 11:08 a.m.) 2 - - - - - - - - - - 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, let's come back to order, if 4 we might. Ms. Hyde, we -- when we broke, we had you up with 5 personnel issues. Are there any other items you want to 6 bring to our attention? 7 MS. HYDE: When we talked about that churn rate, I 8 can't emphasize enough that the churn that we have, when I do 9 exit interviews with employees, I mean, the number was 10 95 percent; 95 percent of the question, "Why are you leaving 11 Kerr County?" "I need more money. I'm going to take 12 benefits, but I'm going to drive to get it," or, "I'm going 13 to go to someplace else that has benefits." And in our area, 14 like I said, there's three of us that we can look at, four of 15 us that, you know, we offer similar benefit plans. It's 16 similar work. And I looked at the banks, and I don't -- I 17 don't mean this to be derogatory to any office, but bank 18 tellers handle money. They're responsible for money. 19 They're responsible for laws. They're responsible for 20 operating equipment, computer equipment, so I used that. I 21 stretched as some of our administrative folks, and they're 22 making 15, 16 bucks an hour. So, I didn't do this lightly. 23 I don't like getting up here asking for money, 'cause I know 24 how we all look at it. I'm a taxpayer too. But on 100,000, 25 we're asking for 10 bucks. On 200,000, we're asking for 20. 7-16-08 bwk 80 1 And I think that as a united front, we all agree that that 20 2 bucks is needed. In some areas, our lower-end employees, do 3 I think that that's even enough? In all honestly, no, I 4 don't. And I felt like our 13's should move to 14's in 5 addition, though, because we should only have -- in 6 my judgment, we should only have three positions in 13's any 7 more, and that is the kennel worker and two housekeeping 8 positions, and that's it. But for the overall good, 9 10 percent, versus -- it would have been close to 14 and a 10 half percent for those people to go up. So, we're all 11 looking at ways that we can reduce the cost to everyone, but 12 at -- but get some good people in here and maintain them. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are you going to address -- 14 or are individual elected officials and department heads 15 going to address possible additions to staff? 16 MS. HYDE: In each of their budgets. When Jeannie 17 and I worked on trying to put numbers together, the budgets 18 were put in with existing personnel. 19 MS. HARGIS: With longevities. 20 MS. HYDE: With longevities. We've already got the 21 longevities in there. And we've got the educational 22 increases that people felt like they would -- they were going 23 to get, especially from the S.O. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Those are the ones that are put in 25 place because of existing policies that are mandated? 7-16-08 bwk 81 1 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 3 MS. HYDE: So, that way we're not going to say it's 4 one number, and then, oh, we got to put longevities in and 5 all this. There's five people asking for five employees, and 6 each of those are going to do it during their own budget. 7 So, there are five positions that people are asking for. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. So you're not going 9 to try to make a case for them? 10 MS. HYDE: No, sir. I'll be here with them, but 11 it's for them to make the case. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And what y'all show there -- 13 and in our notes, you'll see, such as mine, I originally 14 started this year asking for four deputies. Last 15 Commissioners Court you took care of part of the problem. We 16 converted, and I did away with the sergeant and made a deputy 17 that helped with -- a street deputy in the current budget 18 that you see right now. And there was prior -- and right at 19 the time we were working all this, you'll see that I'm still 20 requesting one deputy. And I'm telling you right now, with 21 the 10 percent, what we're trying to ask, that one deputy -- 22 I've already talked with my administrative staff and patrol 23 lieutenant and them, "How can we do it?" And he said, "We 24 can do without it this year." And we will give up that 25 position -- that extra position, to help with this 10 percent 7-16-08 bwk 82 1 county-wide. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: So, you're going to zero additional 3 employees? 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Additional employees. Now, we 5 converted one this last Commissioners Court, okay? That's 6 there. But additional employees besides that, what I'm doing 7 is going to zero. And because of the medical health contract 8 that we're going to, where originally in the last one we were 9 talking about cutting four employees, now I'm also cutting 10 five, so I'm going to zero for the Sheriff's Office 11 additional employees, and cutting five personnel in the jail 12 that will help carry this through. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, a net of minus five. 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Huh? 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Net of minus five. 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Net of minus five. 17 MS. HYDE: The other department is Mr. Odom's, and 18 he has cut big time as well. Close to quarter of a million, 19 correct? 20 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 21 MR. ODOM: Something like that. 22 MS. HYDE: So, I just thought if we're going to get 23 it out there, get it out there at the front end. 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Some of the small departments 25 couldn't afford to cut, because they didn't have the funds to 7-16-08 bwk 83 1 cut as much as the larger ones, and that's why we tried to 2 cut more. 3 MS. HYDE: And all the radios were brought up as 4 well. The radio system, because of the -- what y'all talked 5 about Monday. In several of the budgets, there were radios. 6 The constables, Animal Control, -- 7 MS. HARGIS: Environmental. 8 MS. HYDE: -- Environmental. They're whacking all 9 of that out of their budgets as well, 'cause they had put it 10 in 'cause they thought we were going to have the radios just 11 like the S.O. has. So, those are substantial in some of 12 those small offices. I think in the constables' offices, it 13 was four grand apiece, so there's 16,000 that's being 14 whacked. So, I mean, everybody's really trying. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Mine was 181,000, and that was 16 still in there the last I knew. We're taking it out, so I'm 17 trying to bring back the other information on the next 18 commissioners court. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Comes to 36 on that, as I recall. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: My deal on that, what was 21 discussed -- and the next commissioners court, I'll bring 22 back some suggestions on either getting with Trott 23 Communications or what -- is that 36 goes too. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay? We do have that grant 7-16-08 bwk 84 1 application in, to where if we got that, we could get by with 2 one or two radios in different departments and that until all 3 this other could take place. 'Cause it would take, you know, 4 probably a year to get everything else in place and that, but 5 we could make it to where there wouldn't be any budgetary 6 impact at all. That would come out. 7 MS. HYDE: Did that answer your question, 8 Commissioner? 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, thank you. 10 MS. UECKER: Four -- four of my seven employees go 11 to another job at 5 o'clock. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They go to another job at 13 5 o'clock? 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Including your chief deputy. 15 MS. UECKER: Including my chief deputy. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I know about her. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else on personnel? Other 18 than mention of that there are a total of five additional 19 employees being requested, that each department will attempt 20 to make their own case, are there any other reorganization 21 issues? 22 MS. HYDE: Well, of course, the Sheriff has told 23 you about what we've done there. This year, we've 24 reorganized in the County Clerk's office, so in the last two 25 years she's a net negative three. She's cut out her 7-16-08 bwk 85 1 part-timers. In the Tax Assessor's office, she has no 2 part-timers. In Animal Control, we've worked on the position 3 schedule with them, and instead of having -- or asking for 4 another person, we're trying to grow that until when we need 5 it, then you get it. Right now, they don't need it there 6 except for some part-time hourly help for weekends, for 7 coverage. Nothing major. Environmental health, he's made do 8 with -- when we cut -- when we cut from last year, so his 9 request is not -- it's an add. It's a replacement, but it's 10 an add. 11 MS. UECKER: I've got one that's helping 12 collections. 13 MS. HYDE: We've got one that's helping 14 collections. And then a suggestion, and Jeannie and I have 15 talked about this one to ponder. The J.P.'s do have lots of 16 revenue that comes in. The problem that they have is, it's a 17 one-person office, so we've had some real difficulty this 18 year in coverage, and we've probably kind of covered in -- in 19 creative methods. So, we have looked at, would it be 20 possible to put in a cover person? We've got four J.P.'s. 21 We've got two administrative assistants or court coordinators 22 that get two weeks vacation each; that's eight weeks 23 vacation. All four of them have to go to continuing 24 education classes and the updates for two weeks each year, 25 but they split, so you've got two going and two going. So, 7-16-08 bwk 86 1 that takes you up to -- another two and two is four, so eight 2 and four is 12. Now we got 12 weeks. If there's any 3 sicknesses or absentees, they do without. The problem is, 4 those offices end up shutting down. If the J.P. is in 5 something else, there's no one there to take the money. And 6 we've all seen some of the folks that are walking around, who 7 come in at 5 o'clock to pay their money on Fridays, and when 8 there's no one there, it makes it difficult. Or 4 o'clock. 9 So, we've kind of looked at, can we get a cover person that 10 could also help with collections and could work upstairs in 11 the clerk's office as well, so that they're being 12 dual-utilized, triple-utilized, so we don't have someone just 13 standing around doing nothing; they're still working on 14 getting money for this county. They're working in the J.P.'s 15 office, they're working in court collections, and they're 16 working upstairs. Give me the money. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: A floater. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Is that one of the five? 19 MS. HARGIS: That's one of the five. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: That's one of the five. 21 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And if we went to a four-day 24 work week, there would be plenty of time for people to come 25 in and spend money. Yeah, okay. 7-16-08 bwk 87 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Any other reorganization issues? 2 MS. HYDE: No, sir. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 4 MS. HYDE: And we'll have the policy book to you 5 prior to budget discussions so that you can review it. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Could we not designate the 7 offices of -- just, for instance, say Road and Bridge did not 8 want to do this, and the Sheriff can't do this. Could we 9 designate only the offices within the courthouse, or others 10 that wanted to be added to the four-day work week? Would 11 that not be possible? Rather than just saying, "Well, most 12 everybody wants to do it; we're just going to make it 13 county-wide." 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think we can do it department 15 by department. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: I'm not sure about the legalities, 17 but that would be the first issue I would want to have 18 answered, is whether or not we could do it piecemeal. I 19 understand Leonard's -- 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Obviously, we have done this 21 piecemeal before. Linda did it, and Leonard did it at one 22 time. 23 MS. HYDE: No, we've done it before. It's one of 24 those -- 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Another one of those issues. 7-16-08 bwk 88 1 It seems to me like the elected officials have the authority 2 to set their own work week, basically. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think there's an Attorney 4 General opinion that says the elected officials can close 5 their offices. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's what I said, elected. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: As long as the hours -- you 8 know, they can't -- 9 MS. UECKER: Forty hours. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's why I said elected 11 officials, but that could also be extended to department 12 heads if that were to be something that would be palatable 13 for that. 14 MS. UECKER: I would have to get my District Judges 15 on board, you know, and not set court on whatever day the 16 County decides, but I think they'd go along with that. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: But does that, for example, 18 then back up the court system even more and have a residual 19 effect on the Sheriff and the jail? 20 MS. UECKER: Right. That's a good question. 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The issue we have there -- and 22 I think, with a new District Attorney coming in, okay, if it 23 was going to be, like, on Friday, I don't know what day we 24 do. Fridays are normally 198th District Court. We would 25 have to get that District Attorney to reshuffle their court 7-16-08 bwk 89 1 schedules throughout their district, because each county has 2 one day a week. So, if they could change our Friday with 3 some other county that's Tuesday, then it could be worked 4 out, and that's something that would just have to be set out. 5 MS. UECKER: And I think they would. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That would hurt us. 7 MS. UECKER: I think they would. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Bolin, you had a question or 9 comment? 10 MS. BOLIN: Well, a comment. When I did the 11 research to do my office, the four 10's, which they already 12 all think it's a great idea, the issue that was brought forth 13 was security because of our hours. If we're the only office 14 that decides to do this, then we're looking at Rusty's 15 security person who has to maintain the courthouse. 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: If the -- real quick, if the 17 courthouse is only open four days a week, then my personnel 18 that's assigned to the courthouse, their hours change along 19 with the courthouse employees' hours, so that they work four 20 days a week, so that's not an issue. 21 MS. BOLIN: Okay. The other issue was, if you do 22 it department by department, then if we decide to do it and 23 Jannett decides not to -- the Judge brought it up. People 24 are going to say, "Okay, how come you're doing it and they're 25 not doing it?" How come I'm open 7:00 to 6:00 and she's open 7-16-08 bwk 90 1 8:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday, and I'm only open four 2 days? 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a very good point, 4 and we have to keep in mind the public's access to its 5 facility. 6 MS. BOLIN: Exactly. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: When I say "department by 8 department," I think -- I mean, you have to look at those 9 factors, I think, with other departments that -- Maintenance 10 is an example that could -- they're under a different type of 11 a schedule and don't deal with the public. And if it works 12 for that department, it can be done there, and not your 13 department. I would agree that if -- we really almost have 14 to have the County Clerk and Tax Assessor probably the same 15 days. 16 MS. BOLIN: Right. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think Linda can probably be 18 different. She can -- most people who go to her office 19 probably don't really go to the other two offices. I think 20 the Tax Assessor and County Clerk people -- 21 MS. UECKER: I get the bad people. The bad people. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think the key to this thing 23 is to get -- you know, decide what it's going to be, and it's 24 going to include everybody within the courthouse. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. Close the doors on 7-16-08 bwk 91 1 Friday, and that's it. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You can't just have one thing 3 open. I mean, it's either all or none, the way I look at it. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree with that. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: In the courthouse. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: If you don't, you're going to 7 cause me some overtime too, because of work schedules. 8 MS. UECKER: Yeah, it has to be all or none. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Tim? 10 MR. BOLLIER: Like, in my department, there's no 11 way I could close -- I could close the doors in my office any 12 day of the week, because my department runs basically seven 13 days a week, with all the things that I have going on at the 14 Ag Barn and everything. But I can schedule around that. I 15 think that -- that the working four 10's is a great idea, 16 because I can schedule around that. But, still, I will 17 always have somebody here seven days a week, because I 18 virtually do that right now. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Because you have other facilities 20 that -- 21 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: -- that you're responsible for. 23 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Is the primary reason for that? 25 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 7-16-08 bwk 92 1 JUDGE TINLEY: And there may be some minor items 2 that are -- it really might be to your benefit that you can 3 attend to during that one day where you're not in the way, 4 whereas you would be in -- 5 MR. BOLLIER: Nobody under a -- 6 JUDGE TINLEY: -- normal business being carried on. 7 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. On those days when it's 8 closed, there's things that they can go in those offices and 9 do that we can't do when people are there. 10 MR. TROLINGER: For I.T., I attempted to do work 11 from home one day a week, and I alternated with Drew 12 Wednesday and Thursday the past three weeks to see how it 13 would work out. And what we found was, we end up having to 14 drive in, and it negates the advantage of telecommunicating 15 about half of the time. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, of course, the tele -- when 17 you raise the issue of telecommunicating, that might solve 18 some of the court issues, too. We can -- if we get that in 19 place and utilized, I think we can increase the efficiency of 20 the courts. I know Judge Brown is already using it, and he's 21 finding it quite to his liking, based on what he's told me. 22 And it saves personnel from -- from Rusty's operation, people 23 going back and forth. It saves time transporting. It saves 24 time, saves fuel. It just saves a whole lot of things, and 25 you got media hooked up and you can dispose of those cases 7-16-08 bwk 93 1 and get on down the road. And if we end up with the entire 2 districts -- both districts wired together, you can reduce a 3 lot of the time on the road that those judges have to travel, 4 and they can be spending that time disposing of cases that 5 they otherwise lose a lot of time on the road. They have to, 6 necessarily. 7 MR. TROLINGER: It's all good. All good reports. 8 No negatives on the video teleconferencing project. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Been getting better. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Would a four-times-ten in 11 any way impact your statutory requirements on juvenile 12 hearings? 13 JUDGE TINLEY: We do it twice a week anyway. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: And we're in compliance doing it 16 twice a week, doing it Monday and Thursday. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Generally, if -- say, for example, 19 it's Monday through Thursday. If they're put in detention 20 on -- on Friday, for example, we normally don't see them till 21 Monday anyway. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just think one of the 24 exciting things about it is that it has -- it opens up more 25 access for the taxpaying public to be able to use, you know, 7-16-08 bwk 94 1 the after-hour type thing. 2 MS. UECKER: Yeah. That's one thing I discovered, 3 that about 30 percent of our customers were coming after 4 5 o'clock. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure. 6 MS. UECKER: They realized that they could come in 7 after they got off of work. Of course, then we got a lot of 8 complaints because -- "Well, I came here to pay my taxes too, 9 and they're not open." 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. Yeah. 11 MS. UECKER: You know. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We can throw rocks at her 13 all day. 14 MS. UECKER: I know. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's hard to conduct business, 16 period, if you're working 8:00 to 5:00. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It is. It is. 18 MS. HYDE: Right. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that opens up the 20 access. But I'd like to see Commissioner Williams contact 21 his -- his good buddy down at Bexar County, Commissioner 22 Larson or whoever down there, that they're going through this 23 same thing, only they're way down the road compared to us. I 24 mean, they're literally thinking about adopting it -- 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll call him. 7-16-08 bwk 95 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- very soon, and kind of 2 just see what the pitfalls are. And they would have the 3 same -- same pitfalls that we would. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure. Larger scale. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Larger scale. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll do that. 7 MS. BOLIN: I have one other comment. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: I'd really be interested in getting 9 feedback from our public. I realize a lot of our citizens 10 are retired or semi-retired, and they can come down here and 11 transact business during the middle of the day. I -- I'd 12 like their -- I'd like their input, but I'd particularly like 13 input from folks that work an average work day -- 9:00 to 14 5:00, 8:00 to 5:00 -- about how that would suit them. I'd 15 really hope to receive as much input as we could. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Maybe we can get that feedback. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We haven't touched on this, 19 but are we talking about a 10-hour work day that would be 20 from 7 o'clock to noon, an hour break, and then 1:00 to 6:00? 21 Is that what we're talking about? Or are we talking about -- 22 MS. UECKER: 7:00 to 6:00. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 7:00 to 6:00. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 7 a.m. to 12:00, 1:00 to 25 6:00? 7-16-08 bwk 96 1 MS. UECKER: Another thing, I noticed that a lot of 2 the retired folks liked it, 'cause some of them had to wait 3 for the daughter to get off so they could come pick her up 4 and bring her to come do business. You know, so the retired 5 folks actually liked it as well. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it -- I'd be interested 8 to hear feedback, whether you want to go 7:00 to 6:00 or 8:00 9 to 7:00. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. Let's examine it. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: For a lot of people, myself 12 included, it's pretty darn hard to be anywhere at 7 o'clock, 13 cause I live so far away, I got to get up at 4 o'clock in the 14 morning if I had to. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You could always move close 16 to town. 17 MS. HYDE: A lot of the employees have children. 18 You can get the help after work, but getting them to 19 school -- taking them to school an hour and a half early, 20 there's nowhere to drop them. So sometimes, if you back it 21 up, then they'll have -- they'll have the ability to get 22 their children to school, and they can have coverage in the 23 afternoons. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: That's the kind of feedback that we 25 need to receive from the public, from all segments of the 7-16-08 bwk 97 1 public. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, if you do a story -- if 3 you do a story on it, put be sure to put the Judge's home 4 telephone number in there. (Laughter.) 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So that he can get the 6 information, directly. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Directly. 8 MS. BOLIN: I have one other comment on that. The 9 Gregg County Tax Assessor did the 7:00 to 6:00, closed on 10 Fridays. His biggest problem was that he did not tell 11 anybody. He didn't tell Commissioners Court, he didn't tell 12 the news media. He let no one know. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Is he still living in that same 14 town? 15 MS. BOLIN: Barely. But that, I think, is going to 16 be a big key, is a lot of public information if we decide to 17 do this. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what we're doing 19 right here. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's necessary. 21 MS. BOLIN: It is very necessary. 22 MS. ROMAN: I think it would benefit my department 23 greatly to go from actually 8:00 to 7:00, because the 24 majority of the public knows that we're only working 8:00 to 25 5:00, and they always -- most of the problems that we're 7-16-08 bwk 98 1 dealing with right now are after 5:00. So -- 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: A lot of people. 3 MS. ROMAN: -- there's been several times that Marc 4 and I have come in at 10:00 and worked -- you know, worked 5 till 7:00, just to issue citations and catch people's dogs 6 running loose. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: You're working those hours anyway, 8 is what you're telling me, for the most part. 9 MS. ROMAN: Right. Right, a lot of times we do. 10 Plus a lot -- the majority of the working class people can't 11 come in to reclaim their animals, because we're closed at 12 5:00. So, I think this would work great for my department. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: But, as department heads 14 and elected officials poll their employee groups on this 15 issue, -- 16 MS. ROMAN: Absolutely. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- they need to deal with 18 the operational times, because a lot of people are going to 19 say, "Well, I don't want to work till 7 o'clock at night." 20 MS. ROMAN: We've discussed it a little bit in my 21 department, and there's only one employee that has an issue 22 with her day care. But she can work it out to where her 23 parents can take the -- pick the child up at 5:00 and keep 24 the child for a couple of hours. But day care doesn't open 25 until 8 o'clock, so that's one of those issues that it -- 7-16-08 bwk 99 1 there was no way she could work it to be at work at 7:00. 2 So, for my department, it would have to, you know, work from 3 8:00 to -- 4 JUDGE TINLEY: 7:00. 5 MS. HYDE: We just don't want it to be where we end 6 up having to baby-sit -- baby-sit -- or for the courthouse to 7 have a lot of children in it because our employees have 8 nowhere to put them. That's one of the policies that's 9 really changed in the policy book. I mean, it's not that we 10 don't love children, but -- but we can't have the children in 11 the courthouse to be baby-sat during normal working hours. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And if you -- if you're 13 talking about -- 14 MR. BOLLIER: You could open a day care; Jody could 15 take care of them there in the judge's office. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You have to bring your own 17 diapers, though. We don't provide diapers. The -- but if 18 you're talking about -- if you're cutting off a day to save 19 some gasoline money on that -- just that one day, then you 20 turn around and spend more than that on day care, you know, 21 golly, that's defeating the purpose and actually costing 22 more. 23 MS. HYDE: Right. And that's why, when y'all asked 24 everyone to ask their folks, although a lot of people are 25 going to be very excited about it, please listen to those 7-16-08 bwk 100 1 that don't, because they're telling you what the problems 2 are. So -- 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Get them to the Judge. 4 MS. UECKER: I think the -- 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: He'll fix dinner for them. 6 MS. UECKER: I think the Commissioners ought to 7 take turns staying here and baby-sitting the kids. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That did it. It's over. 9 (Laughter.) We're still with the five days. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That took care of that. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Actually, I thought we'd send 12 them over to your house so you could go home early and take 13 care of them. 14 MS. UECKER: Okay. That's -- hey, that's a deal. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Then you can fix dinner for 16 all of them. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That would be a subsidy to 18 your income. 19 MS. UECKER: There you go. One thing I did was, I 20 did not open the office until 8 o'clock, because we didn't 21 have anybody coming in early anyway. They did come in after. 22 But we used that hour to do catch-up work from the day 23 before, or prepare for court without customers and phones. I 24 told them, "Don't answer the phones till 8 o'clock." You 25 know, "Just do what you got to do." And, you know, it -- it 7-16-08 bwk 101 1 seemed to really help productivity. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a good suggestion. 3 MS. UECKER: We didn't open until 8:00. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Is that it for the personnel 6 issues? 7 MS. HYDE: Unless y'all have any questions. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Everybody's going to be 9 polling their department personnel, and we're going to learn 10 all sorts of things. Good. And we're going to get feedback 11 from the public, with assistance from the media, hopefully. 12 We'll see where that goes. Looks like City/County joint 13 operations is the remaining issue. As the members of the 14 Court know, at the Court's direction, I did send a 15 communication over to the City a little less than a month -- 16 about a month ago, and I've gotten no formal response. I 17 have been told that the matter is to be put on the agenda for 18 the 22nd of this month. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: For them, you mean? 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes, on the City Council's -- the 21 City Council's agenda for the 22nd. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's going to be put on 23 the agenda? 24 JUDGE TINLEY: The issue of City/County joint 25 operations funding. 7-16-08 bwk 102 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: That's what I'm told. Now, what 3 actually ends up on the agenda, I don't know. For budgeting 4 purposes, I'm not sure. You know, I'm open to listening to 5 anything, but it seems to me like we need to at least 6 tentatively plug in what we communicated to the City a month 7 ago and see how that develops. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Looks like we got 188,334 9 in there now. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: For the airport. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I don't -- 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, I'm under City/County, 13 but that is only airport? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That is the airport. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That is only airport. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Not enough for everything. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, in that note, 18 Commissioner Letz and I have -- have indicated -- he's asked 19 by e-mail to the Mayor -- we really believe we have a need 20 for two-on-two before we have our five-on-five. We want to 21 be certain that we have an agreement -- new governance 22 agreement on the airport, because if we don't, we have to 23 hack that out. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree with that, too. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, obviously, I agree with 7-16-08 bwk 103 1 it, but -- 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't know that y'all are 3 ever going to get there. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But I guess the problem that I 5 see -- and maybe this can be relayed to the City. You know, 6 we only have two hours allotted for our joint meeting, and 7 usually that's pretty much a -- you know, a kind of a -- not 8 a whole lot of nuts and bolts going into these details. And 9 it appears to me that the City wants to have a nuts-and-bolts 10 meeting with everyone in attendance, including the Airport 11 Board, and I just don't see how that's going to work very 12 efficiently. I think -- I really need to narrow down what 13 that meeting on August 6th is -- I think August -- is that 14 the date? 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: August 6th. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's August 6th. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: I was not aware that we had even 18 firmed up a date yet. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That means two of us, 20 Judge. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: From 12:00 to 2:00, Judge. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: We have rolled so many around 23 that -- 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: August 6th. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 12:00 to 2:00, and we're buying 7-16-08 bwk 104 1 lunch. 2 MS. HARGIS: We're buying lunch? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I know you got Sheriff's 5 Office and jail. 6 (Discussion off the record.) 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What time? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 12:00 to 2:00. But I just 9 think that, you know, for us -- you know, having two hours, 10 eating, practicality says we're not going to have a whole lot 11 of nuts-and-bolts time. We'd better have it pretty much -- 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It should be posted as 12:00 13 until whenever. Leave it open-ended. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. But either way, I mean, 15 I think that -- I just think it's very hard to do what the 16 City is asking, to go through all of these things in detail 17 with our full board, their full board, and then for the -- 18 related to the airport, they want the Airport Board to be 19 there in their entirety. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Unless they just want to 21 adopt whatever we propose. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well -- 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And that would be very 24 simple. We could eat and go home. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Go home. 7-16-08 bwk 105 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't see any particular 2 reason for the Airport Board to monitor our joint meeting if 3 we're talking about all of the various operations. If we 4 have a governance agreement in place, then that really takes 5 care of the Airport Board's concerns in terms of operation. 6 The funding of it, that's for us to determine. But it's a 7 foregone conclusion we're going to fund it. Now, one other 8 suggestion that I think of in terms of the governance 9 agreement to move this thing along, Judge, would be in our 10 joint meeting on August 6th, we could have -- if we have a 11 governance agreement -- tentative agreement, we could have an 12 action item on the agenda on August 6th with both of them 13 there to approve it and get it done, and get it off the 14 table. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree. I mean, the -- I 16 wasn't aware that the Airport Board -- I was there on Monday, 17 but they're under the impression that they're going to attend 18 meeting on the 6th, their full board. The City has invited 19 them. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The library? 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Airport Board. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Airport Board. Is this a 23 City/County meeting, or is this a damn airport meeting? 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It sounds like somebody's 25 trying to turn it into the latter. 7-16-08 bwk 106 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All of the above. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what it sounds like 3 to me. Seriously, I don't know what y'all are talking about. 4 Is that a City Council meeting? It is a Commissioners 5 Court/City Council meeting. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But I believe the City has 7 invited the Airport Board to attend, as I understand it. I 8 mean, maybe I'm wrong. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: All the more reason why we 10 should have our two-on-two, get good, tentative agreements 11 and have an action item to approve the governance agreement 12 by both bodies and say, "Good-bye, Airport Board; we'll talk 13 about funding later." 14 JUDGE TINLEY: I was under the impression that the 15 joint meeting for five-on-five was to determine to make 16 funding decisions or try and reach funding agreements with 17 respect to the joint operations. Maybe I missed something, 18 but that was -- that was my sense of it. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's what I thought, too. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the -- in my 21 conversation with the -- brief conversation with the City 22 Manager, he's unclear as well as to what the desires of City 23 Council is at that meeting. That's what he told me. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait a minute, now. Let me 25 ask a goofy question. Are we hosting it? 7-16-08 bwk 107 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where? 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And the City's telling us 4 who's going to be there? Y'all go have fun. I'm not going 5 to go to something like that. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But I think what would be 7 helpful is if we could maybe ask City Council to clarify what 8 they want at their next meeting -- council meeting, what 9 their intent is for the joint meeting, 'cause I think there's 10 some confusion at the moment. And I think it should be, just 11 like you said earlier, to look at our joint operations and 12 funding of those, and if we have any issues after we've 13 already talked about them, we need to settle them. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me see what I can develop on 15 that. And I was encouraged by the discussions that have been 16 taking place with regard to the airport non-funding issues. 17 Continue to work on them, see what develops, and -- and see 18 where that leads. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have not talked to -- I sent 20 an e-mail. 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, Judge, with that, are 22 you still going to leave the budget workshop that you have 23 set for August 6th? 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Yep. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 7-16-08 bwk 108 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. It's still in place for 2 9 o'clock on the 6th. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Don't be late, Sheriff. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I won't be. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: I think you're up that day, aren't 7 you? 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: All three budgets. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think y'all know from past 11 discussions where we're going to be. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: You're kind of at the end of the -- 13 at the tail end of things. And, of course, when you get 14 there, there ain't no money left. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You get what's left. 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: All I'm hoping that is still 17 there at that time is the 10 percent county-wide raise. 18 We'll make everything else work. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. What else do we got on the 20 schedule for today? 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One other quick issue. 22 Commissioner Oehler and I have been talking with -- working 23 with Bill Amerine at 911, as well as the Sheriff, with 24 respect to this reverse notification system, and Amerine 25 was -- Mr. Amerine was going to be here, but apparently he's 7-16-08 bwk 109 1 not going to make it today. So, at some point in time, we 2 have to crank that in, figure out if we can do it, should do 3 it, who's going to do it, what it's going to cost. 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Because I have not plugged in 5 any figures. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, I know you haven't. I 7 basically have been trying to work out the numbers with 8 Amerine, and he in turn with the various contractors. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is the County Attorney 11 still in the room, or has he left? 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: He left. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Stepped out. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We have an issue that needs 15 to be satisfied with respect to acquiring the service. Do we 16 have to go to bid for that, or as the sole source -- sole 17 source provider -- it's probably not a sole source provider, 18 so we probably have to put an RFQ out for proposals -- an 19 RFP. But we need to know if we're going to do it, have a 20 benchmark or a ballpark figure. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What are you talking about? 22 Are you talking about the notification? 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, the reverse 24 notification, the WARN system. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Have we thrashed and chopped 7-16-08 bwk 110 1 at everything on the schedule for today? 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Is that it? We'll be adjourned. 4 (Budget workshop adjourned at 11:43 a.m.) 5 - - - - - - - - - - 6 7 8 STATE OF TEXAS | 9 COUNTY OF KERR | 10 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 11 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 12 County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 13 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 14 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 24th day of July, 2008. 15 16 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 17 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 18 Certified Shorthand Reporter 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 7-16-08 bwk